Action Figures Sold Separately
by lembas7
Summary: In the world where SHIELD caught up to Steve Rogers in Times Square, there were four years of victories bracketed by Loki and Zemo. This is not that world. In this world, SHIELD lost Steve Rogers to the streets of New York. Now, any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. (Terms are subject to change without notice.)
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer:** Fair use and transformative work.

 **A/N:** AU of "The Avengers," starting all the way back with "Captain America: The First Avenger." Other subsequent movies in here as well. Set between Episodes 7 and 8 of Marvel's "Daredevil" on Netflix, which is AU'd in that I've moved it back by two-plus years so Season 1 now begins prior to the Battle of New York.

 **Summary:** In the world where SHIELD caught up with Steve Rogers in Times Square, there were four years of victories bracketed by Loki and Zemo.

This is not that world.

In this world, SHIELD lost Steve Rogers to the streets of New York. Now, any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. (Terms are subject to change without notice.)

* * *

ACTION FIGURES SOLD SEPARATELY

 _"_ _ **Pearson pitches a curveball, high and outside, for ball one."**_

Steve blinked.

Whiteness blurred before him, something that hadn't happened since before the procedure; not without snow driving hard into his face –

" _Grab my hand!"_

Dark lashes swept down once more.

Over a quiet rush of wind words came again. _**"So, the Dodgers are tied four-to-four."**_

The voice rang hollow in his ears, eerily familiar.

" _ **And the crowd well knows that with one swing of his bat, this fellow's capable of making it a brand new game again."**_

Brakes squealed, faint but not distant.

Softness, beneath his head; buoying him up. Smooth cotton against his skin, air moving slowly, prickling the fine hairs on his arms. _This isn't my uniform._

When had _that_ happened?

 _. . . Something's not right._ Something beyond the strangeness of reconciling waking warm with his last memory of pointing the plane's nose down, through white clouds, towards pale ice. Impact was a gaping maw of blackness and pain, lingering just within reach of the rest of the memory.

Quietly, a car honked.

 _Wrong_.

 _ **"Just an absolutely gorgeous day here at Ebbet's Field."**_

The sun, bright and beaming down into the bandbox; packed tight up against the rail, leaning out to peer at the scoreboard –

 _ **"The Phillies have managed to tie it up at four-to-four."**_

Pale blades circled lazily above him. He turned his head against the pillow, green and white resolving into a clean bedroom unlike any hospital he'd ever seen. Too empty, for one. Too big, for just one man.

 _ **"But the Dodgers have three men on."**_

Springs creaked with the shift of his weight. Steve pushed up, muscles quietly aching with each motion, leaving him sitting straight with a crinkle between blond brows.

Someone knew he liked baseball; though that wasn't much of a secret. Who would be thoughtful enough to play it for him? Peggy?

 _ **"Pearson beaned Reiser in Philadelphia last month.**_ _ **Wouldn't the youngster like a hit here to return the favor?"**_

The light streaming in through the window was not warm. He could hear a breeze, but couldn't feel it.

 _ **"Pete leans in. Here's the pitch."**_

Metal grated on metal, whining high on the edge of his hearing. _It's not baseball season._ Or it shouldn't be.

" _ **Swung on. A line to the right."**_

Honking horns and the persistent squeal of brakes nearly drowned out the next words.

" _ **And it gets past Rizzo."**_

Cheering, faint behind the announcer's rapid-fire narration. Shock bloomed hotly in Steve's chest, his knuckles pressing white for a bare moment against the wool blanket beneath his fingers.

" _ **Three runs will score."**_

Breath rushed in his lungs. _I know this._

" _ **Reiser heads to third."**_

He could almost see the white uniform, splashed with blue, rounding the bases under a gorgeous sun – for all that it had been years ago.

" _ **Durocher's gonna wave him in."**_

A room too clean, too large, too bright, too new. Not enough smog in the air breezing through the open window; the buildings outside matte and flat.

" _ **Here comes the relay but they won't get him."**_

The door opened, with a rattle in the jamb more suited to a light screen on loose hinges.  
 _ **"Pete Reiser with an inside the park grand slam!"**_

Dark curls, red lips, skirt, tie, blouse. The cut of the fabric ever-so-slightly off, enough that the effect was nothing like regulation. _She looks like Peggy._

Steve's heart settled with the chill coursing through his veins, mind clear and battle-ready even as she smiled.

"Good morning. Or should I say afternoon?"

 _She knows who I am._ And didn't introduce herself.

" _ **Oh, my goodness -"**_

"Where am I?"

" _ **\- the crowd is going absolutely wild, here -"**_

"You're in a recovery room in New York City."

Which lined up with where they wanted him to think he was. _And she's not a nurse._

" _ **The Dodgers take the lead, eight to four. Oh-ho, Dodgers!"**_ Steve's attention jerked toward the radio, head turning; he could feel her gaze still following him. _Trained._ Anyone else would have looked where he did, trying to see what he saw. _Something is very wrong._

And there really was only one likely answer.

" _ **Everyone is on their feet. What a game we have here today, folks. What a game indeed."**_  
Blue eyes flicked back, meeting hers. He didn't bother to keep the hostility out of his voice. _No soldiers; one unarmed woman. What happens when I call the bluff?_ "Where am I really?"

Red lips smiled half-heartedly, her expression gone before it was really there. "I'm afraid I don't understand."

"The game. It's from May, 1941. I know, 'cause I was there." _And isn't that a coincidence?_

Her face blanked, something like alarm taking the place of amiable control. Fear widened her eyes the barest fraction.

Springs creaked, and Steve stood, feet settling into the feel of new boots. _Nothing hurts._ Though God only knew what they'd done to him while he was out. _Just out. Not dead. How am I not dead?_ "Now I'm gonna ask you again. Where am I?"  
At the very edge of his hearing, something _click_ ed.

 _…_ Why _am I not dead?_

"Captain Rogers..." she whispered.

"Who are you?!"

The door opened again, familiar black-clad bodies spilling in, and Steve fell back, body finding the defensive stance that had seen him through countless Brooklyn alleys and then been refined on dozens of European battlefields. _Two. Only two._

 _For now._

They didn't waste time trying to flank him; neither went for the weapons hanging across their chests. _They want me alive and aware or I'd never have woken up._ But it was whatever else they wanted that had them trying to trick him into passive acquiescence.

He moved, a ducking twist that spun him away from them, managing to grab each one by the thick vest padding their torsos, and aiming for the wall.

Plaster tore and thin metal _clang_ ed against concrete as the wall collapsed back on itself, revealing a room beyond.

 _Better than the door._

Steve vaulted through the gaping hole, sound echoing oddly in the barren space. _Lord Almighty._ He twisted, turning to take in the entirety of the farce. It was a stage; the room, the sight through its windows, the sounds of the street – _How did they have the time to make this?_

How long had he been out?

 _Get away. Get out now!_

"Captain Rogers, wait!"

More boots reverberated against the concrete. _Reinforcements_. Steve slammed through a set of double doors, feeling something that had been barred give way, and stumbled out into a corridor overflowing with a mix of black-clad soldiers and black-suited civilians. The hallway was high and open and like nothing he'd ever seen.

Behind him, he could hear her voice calling for help. "All agents, code thirteen! I repeat, all agents, code thirteen!"

Men and women had already started to turn, attention attracted by the noise of metal doors bursting apart. Surprise on some faces, others carefully blank –

Steve _ran_.

* * *

A dark shadow loomed over Phil's shoulder. "Well?"

"This month's surprise drill is going smoothly. If you don't count Administrative Sub-Level 3. I tend not to." A few of the newer agents had faltered, setting the response time back a bit, but only in odd areas such as the cafeteria and two sub-level administrative floors. Typically low-alert areas, that would now be receiving more attention rather than less. _Shouldn't impact the retrieval._ Except for the hiccup in the garage. That would need to be addressed in the weekly, monthly, and quarterly reviews.

Fury was far too professional to let any hint of his real feelings show without reason; but even so the next breath was lighter against the dim glow of multiple screens clustered throughout the room. "Not what I was asking."

To Phil's left, agents swarmed through the hallways in an orderly scramble caught from every angle by security camera lenses strong enough to pick up fraying thread at hemlines circling moving ankles and wrists. To his right, a series of GPS trackers clustered together, alternately pinging every other minute against one of SHIELD's secure satellites to generate a near-constant _bzzz_ of activity. "He's headed north on 7th Ave." Phil squinted, checked the tracker monitors against a camera-view of the street, and glanced at his watch. "He's outrunning the traffic."

"That's not hard in this city."

"The GPS is moving at twenty-two miles an hour, Sir." _And the fastest human ever clocked didn't quite hit twenty-eight._

The cameras outside SHIELD's New York headquarters had lost Rogers within moments; four techs clustered off to the side were tracking him through various security cameras perched on other buildings and traffic lights lining the street. The feeds flipped almost as quickly as the average channel surfer, so quickly did he move.

Nick blinked, which was as much of a reaction as anyone could expect. "Well, we knew he was fast, Coulson."

"Sir." It wasn't – quite – agreement.

 _We didn't know_ this.

The surviving paper records from Project Rebirth were scant, to say the least. _What wasn't written in shorthand. In Yiddish._ The last of Rogers' blood samples had been lost, not long after the end of the war. They had nothing, aside from rumors and unreliable reports almost seventy years old, and bio-stats gathered during the defrosting and recovery process.

No SHIELD agent liked running blind.

 _Speaking of running . . ._

Somehow, even as he was pushing through crowds and leaping concrete barriers, Rogers wasn't leaving an open trail of trampled pedestrians behind him. Lithe despite his speed, he slipped sideways between people, weaving past without doing more than ruffling a few feathers, keeping to the far edge of the sidewalk almost in the street itself.

If he had moved without a care for what he was leaving in his wake . . . _He could go faster._

"This was a bad idea, Sir." Phil's stomach was a heavy weight, stress clenching tight fingers around his insides in a way that he'd long since learned to ignore. _But this isn't a standard op._

"You think I don't know that?" There was a moment's pause. "There's only so much even I can do when the World Security Council decides to stick its nose in, Coulson."

"Yes, sir." They'd barely been able to block the attempts to secure various biological samples from Rogers while the man was unconscious; only Phil's constant presence had deterred several of the more surreptitious attempts at hair clippings, cheek-swabs or blood draws, to say nothing of the initial tries at collecting bone marrow and cerebrospinal fluid that had tipped him off in the first place. All attempts had been backed up by orders originating higher than either of them. Useful as that information might be, essential as it could be to recreating Erskine's genius . . . _There are lines._

Fewer than he'd once thought. But lines nonetheless. Ones that couldn't be crossed without leaving his core integrity – hidden, protected – behind.

Although _why_ this set-up, _why_ the mock-up of a hospital room – and why the research had been left to a new recruit, detail-oriented but so green Phil could practically smell cut grass . . .

On the screen, the clustered dots tracking Captain America swiveled hard to the right – but only so far as to cross the street and continue in their previous direction on the opposite sidewalk.

"If he keeps headed that way, he'll end up in Times Square."

"Good." Fury's fingers flexed, easing into softly ebon leather. Backlit by the corridor lights, he paused just inside the door. "I'm going to wrap this up personally. Keep me apprised." His eyepatch tipped towards the row of screens. "And get me eyes in the sky."

"Yes, Sir."

With a whisper of dark cloth, the Director was gone.

Blinking green raced down the street at speeds most people could never contemplate matching. On the street-cameras, Phil could see the target – _Captain America_ – weaving deftly through the crowds. At SHIELD's garage, three STRIKE teams piled into a convoy of black SUV's.

Something sour curdled in his belly. _Mission accomplished._

* * *

"Watch it!"

 _Hoooooooonnnnnk!_

"Hey!"

"What the f-"

Noise swirled around him in a cacophonous mass, the chill air a thick wetness against his bare arms. Steve raced through the intersection, sliding across the too-low hood of a car that _screeeck_ ed to a halt almost on his toes.

 _Honk-honk-hoooonnnnk!_

"Asshole!"

"- gonna get somebody killed!"

The street had funneled him in a straight line from the building he'd escaped from, a combination of traffic, lights, and the speed he needed keeping him from veering off. _They're going to find me in minutes –_

Amber switched to red on his left, barely visible through a momentary gap in the bustle of people. It was enough to redirect the crowds even before a white-lit figure blinked into existence across the street, the signal light markedly belated compared to tenacious New Yorkers already swarming onto the asphalt.

Steve dodged, veering west at a speed that left two more pedestrians and a taxi-driver swearing at him. Ducking past a group of old women brandishing brightly-colored umbrellas, he jumped over a startled delivery-man's handcart, _thudding_ down on damp pavement –

His foot went out from beneath him.

Twisting mid-fall, concrete slammed against the sides of his legs even as his palms skinned against wet sidewalk. The impact jarred him just enough for a moment of startled stillness, lungs gulping at damp smog. _What –_

His left ankle was a little twisted, the boot heel just a lump of black rubber a few inches from his hand. The joint _twing_ ed as he pulled in both legs from the ungainly sprawl in which he'd landed. _The crowds are bad enough, but now this –_

"Serves you right, douchebag." The delivery-man was laughing, a vindictive sound that followed Steve back to his feet.

 _Beep-beep-beep-beep-beep…_

High, piercing, almost a screech along the upper range of his hearing. It turned him around, so close it set his teeth on edge.

His ankle wasn't more than lightly strained, but the boot was broken enough to throw his gait off. Couldn't leave the shoes. _I've run barefoot through Brooklyn before. Don't want to do it again._

 _Beep-beep-beep-beep-beep…_

This wasn't Brooklyn, but from the American English all around him and the familiar street signs, he was at least in New York. _Maybe._ He couldn't look too much closer, knowing the bizarrely different cars and clothes and the smell of the air itself meant _something_ he couldn't examine just yet, not if he wanted to stay free from –

 _Beep-beep-beep-beep-beep…_

Metal glinted, pinprick-small, from a lump of black rubber.

Steve scooped up the bootheel, trying not to limp obviously as he strode away from the still-muttering deliveryman. _Not enough distance, but I'm attracting too much attention._ If anyone following him asked which direction he'd gone, the deliveryman would certainly remember and probably be more than willing to share.

 _Especially for a man in short sleeves and no coat when it looks like it's going to rain . . ._ Whoever had dressed him – _God_ what a horrible thought – had paid attention; shoot-me white and pale khaki in what was almost certainly late fall or early spring. The crowds wore blacks and navys with a few bold colors scattered in the dark-clad masses. _I stick out more than if I was wearing my uniform._

Hunching a little against the cold, Steve kept his feet moving quickly through the crowds, turning over the filthy boot heel. Treads on one side, the other – well. Half of it looked cleanly sliced, sticky adhesive tacking along his fingertips; the other half had torn raggedly away from the rest of the sole.

And something was embedded within it. Strong fingers pressed at thick rubber, folding it until the tiny hole opened along two pre-sliced seams, revealing a dull metal disc no bigger than a dime.

 _BEEP-BEEP-BEEP-BEEP-BEEP…_

No longer shielded by rubber, the tiny disc emitted a constant whine loud enough to make him cringe – though every darting glance from beneath lowered eyelashes told him he was the only one who could hear it.

He ducked around an olive-skinned woman pushing a three-wheeled … something, glancing over just long enough to see a child sleeping beneath a clear curtain inside it. It looked like no pram he'd ever seen before in his life. _Don't. Later._

Steve turned mangled rubber over in his hands. Someone had carefully cut the heel away from the sole, peeling it open just enough to insert the device inside. _Did they know enough to know that the rubber would muffle the noise? Or were they just lucky?_

Another thought chilled him further, breaking into goosebumps along his arms. _What do you want to bet there's a second in the other shoe? Or another, somewhere else?_

Or more.

He didn't know what it could do, but it was transmitting. _Worst-case scenario: modified huff-duff._ The memory slammed into him out of nowhere, blanking out the street in front of him for the space of a blink. _"This is your transponder. Activate it when you're ready, and the signal will lead us straight to you."_

Stark's device had been the size of a pack of cigarettes. HYDRA had been using new technology, sleek streamlined silver not that different from this. But something so _small_ was like nothing he'd seen before. _How_ long _was I out?_

He could guarantee that the answer wasn't good.

Up ahead, a waiting crowd surged against slow-moving cars, forcing them to a stop even as the crossing sign's white-lit figure was traded for a flashing orange hand. Steve sped up, mingling with a group of late-goers pushing into the crosswalk even as the hand stopped flashing, glowing a persistent _stop_.

He couldn't hold on to the disc; likely it would allow them to triangulate his position. _Why even bother otherwise?_

Not when escaping them had been a matter of subduing two armed guards and running through a set of doors, the hallway beyond clearly lit by the _real_ outside light. _Too easy._

Who _were_ they?

Steve clenched the disc in one fist, binning the two useless halves of rubber in a trashcan on the corner. He paced a woman with an overlarge bag, enough of a gap between them to let people through, and for the first time let his eyes settle on the people around him. The open mouth of the bag gaped temptingly.

 _Maybe –_

Only the possibility of a second in the other shoe stayed his hand. _Find cover. Check._ Until then he had to hold onto it; but if they _were_ using this to track him, the streets were packed with decoys. Steve scanned the crowd. Yawning bags, boots and coat pockets; prams; shopping bags; hoods hanging down shoulders . . .

The clothes were little like what he knew, closer to the form of the bodies underneath than he was used to; and it wasn't just one or two people. It was _everyone_ , even women – there was barely a skirt or dress in sight. Most people had umbrellas – though smaller and flimsier than anything he'd ever seen – or slickers, and a good portion had shoes that might have been Wellingtons, though he'd never seen those boots in any other color than army green. Unease settled deep in his belly.

 _Not far enough away. Not hidden in the crowds. They're tracking me._

The cars were so, so different; low and wide and sleek. A truck blared past, reeking of diesel and something worse, rickety and white with a blue phrase he didn't recognize emblazoned ahead of an almost-star of yellow lines. Panic sped up his heartbeat, breath wheezing in and out of his lungs in a way it hadn't since – since –

 _Stop._

Steve's protective crowd of pedestrians split, part turning south onto 10th Ave and the rest continuing west. _Can't go much further._ At the last moment, he turned with the group headed south.

If this _was_ Manhattan, or anything like the Manhattan he'd vaguely known, the Hudson was two long blocks to his right, and his best opportunity to get lost in the mess of the city was behind him. Through a maze of rigid grids made by streets and unbroken walls of buildings that hemmed people in between solid concrete and moving traffic. _Maybe_ he could make them divide their forces by planting the tracker on a person or vehicle; or maybe he'd just let them know that he'd discovered the trackers, and put an innocent bystander in harm's way.

He needed – _to blend in, to check for more trackers, to get out of the main streets, to find out what was going on, to discover who was after him and why_ – time.

Which was exactly what they weren't going to give him.

Above, still hidden in the low-hanging fog, beat a familiar sound. Distant, but speeding closer.

 _Thwock-thwock-thwock-thwock-thwock-thwock -_

Up ahead, two things caught his attention and blue eyes narrowed; the wisps of a plan began to twine together.

* * *

"Damn it, Coulson, where is he?"

 _"Changed direction again, sir – he's headed south now down 10_ _th_ _Ave. Looks like he's giving Times Square a miss."_

Rogers hadn't even really made much distance on them, but with this traffic it might as well have been miles.

Fury slammed a fist against the dashboard, the glovebox popping open from the force and spilling some idiot's barely-begun post-mission report all over the passenger footwell. He slapped his palm back on the wheel, knuckles blanching. _Sonuva –_ "What the hell is this?"

Sheepish silence emanated from the backseat.

The city around him couldn't have cared less. The SUV had been swallowed whole by a crowd of New Yorkers who were crossing the street regardless of traffic signals or right-of-way. He leaned on the horn – and got a slew of raised fingers and curses but not an inch of space.

 _I hate New York._ The WSC's plan had, as anticipated, gone straight to hell nevermind the handbasket. At least it couldn't get much –

 _"Be advised – target is now in possession of a black sweatshirt."_

"How did _that_ happen?"

Coulson was smiling. He _knew_ that bastard was smiling. _"He lifted it off a street vendor, sir. A few blocks southeast of the Intrepid Museum."_

Red blinked to green, and Fury shoved his way through the intersection, narrowly missing a lime-green VW beetle that looked older than him, and a bicycler who ended up skidding along the sidewalk to avoid being run down.

Horn blaring, he skated around a corner, only to pull up bare inches from the bumper of a battered box-truck. The console's GPS flashed a warning signal at him: _Traffic. Fifteen minutes have been added to your route._

Fury swore, slamming the vehicle into reverse and ignoring the way the bodies of the agents in the seat behind him jerked against their seatbelts with the movement. "We're close to being locked in here. What about the birds?"

 _"Fog's too thick, sir. They can't descend far enough to get a good visual without attracting too much attention."_

"Oh really?" The SUV _skreek_ ed back through the intersection, and this time the pedestrians were keeping to the sidewalks, warned by the wail of skidding tires as he pulled a tight 180.

 _"We've already redirected two 9-1-1's and three calls to the FAA about low-flying aircraft."_

Nothing less than what he expected in a post 9/11 New York, unless – "Tell me they were in stealth mode." Finally a hole opened up between two cars, and Fury's boot slammed the gas.

 _"It was the rotor noise, sir."_

Patience gone, he wove around three taxis and a slew of cars, riding up onto empty pavement and clearing three blocks in as many minutes. "Coulson, where am I headed?"

" _South on 10_ _th_ _at 25_ _th_ _."_

A snarl of traffic blocked the nearest intersection, and he yanked the wheel hard. Motor revving loudly, the SUV jumped forward, headed the wrong way down an empty one-way and crunching panels along the driver's side as Fury scraped along a line of parked cars. From the console a computerized woman's voice chimed, _"Recalculating."_

" _He's ducked into a parking garage."_

"Where?" Pulling a wide turn at the end of the road, Fury stamped the brakes long enough for a woman with a double-wide stroller to pull up short in the crosswalk, screeching, then gunned it, slipping through the narrow space between a battered taxi and pampered Porsche.

 _"10_ _th_ _and 21_ _st_ _."_

Out of the corner of his eye, Fury caught sight of the Porsche's driver flashing him the finger. "Did they have parking garages in the '40's?"

" _Yes, sir."_

 _Huh._ "Is it enclosed or open-air?" Which wouldn't be the norm for Manhattan, but stranger things had happened.

" _Enclosed, sir."_

"Why would he corner himself like that?" Fury muttered, leaning on the horn at the sight of a line of green lights blocked only by a particularly slow Oldsmobile. "Do you have visual?" The Oldsmobile turned a corner, removing itself from the equation.

" _Looks like Lennie's Park'n'Go installed dummies to save cost. None of their security cameras are live. He's out of the nearest streetcam coverage. I have no eyes on the target."_

"Damn it. We're more than five minutes out. Trackers?"

 _"They're clustered in the ground level of the parking deck. Haven't moved for the last thirty seconds."_ Coulson quieted, and when it came back his voice was studiously calm. _"I've lost one of the trackers."_

"Technical failure, or deliberate destruction?"

The pause that followed had Fury biting back a curse.

 _"No way to know, sir. As of now, we've only lost one."_

Fury sped through an amber light, changing lanes a hairsbreadth from the bumper of yet another taxi. In seconds they were enclosed by a slew of yellow sedans, with nowhere to go but forward and no way to get there if there had been. "How many did you put on him?"

 _"Eighteen, sir. Seventeen still live."_

One of the agents in the back took that moment to blurt out, " _Eighteen?!_ " and saved Fury the embarrassment of doing so.

"Huh," he managed after a moment. "Where did you even find the space?" Short nails tapped impatiently against the steering wheel, waiting for the light to change.

 _"Boots, pockets, sewn into the cuffs and waistband of his pants, glued to metal buttons. The opportunities are comprehensive, sir."_

"Let no one ever accuse you of not being thorough, Agent."

 _"Yes, sir."_

The light finally changed, and Fury leaned on the horn again, shoving taxis out of the way through sheer obnoxiousness. "Two minutes, Coulson. Where is he?"

No answer.

When the silence on the line hit ninety seconds, Fury bit out, "Coulson?"

 _"We have a complication, sir."_

"Do not tell me he destroyed the trackers, Coulson."

 _"They are still live, sir."_

"Then what's the problem?"

 _"They're going in different directions, sir."_

That _son of a bitch._ "All _seventeen_ of them?"

 _"Yes, sir."_

But he had to have come out of the parking garage the same way he came in, if the trackers were on the move. "Streetcams?"

 _"I may have him."_

Fury's knuckles tightened on the wheel, his whole body shifting forward as he ran a red and caught sight of four vertical letters marching down brown bricks: _PARK_.

 _"Presuming he's wearing the sweatshirt he lifted, sir, I have five potential marks along four of the tracker routes. I'm pretty sure two more trackers are in taxis."_

"And the other ten?"

 _"No obvious marks, sir, but the visual on some routes is unreliable at the moment. There's no way of knowing."_

"Deploy agents along each of the routes, Coulson, and withdraw the STRIKE teams." They would have to do this the hard way.

 _"And you, sir?"_

Turning sharply, Fury bumped over a grate in the sidewalk and slid to a halt in front of a filthy kiosk. "I'm going to park the car."

* * *

"That'll be $12.50."

 _Thunk!_

 _"Stand down!"_

"Hey, Mister, $12.50."

 _Tha-thump. Thump. Thump. Tha-thump. Tha-thump. Thump-thump. Thump._

Eight men, by the sounds of their boots. Against one man, his steps an uneven _thump-thump_ , as if he couldn't trust his feet. Or his shoes. Matt focused, blocking out the rough mutter of traffic three feet away –

 _Whump!_

Flesh met Kevlar with a muted _thunk_ – two bodies hit the ground in a clatter of protective gear that Matt couldn't quite make out. The material probably boasted more sabins as a side-effect of close weave tightly layered.

" _Stand down, Captain!"_

" _I don't think so."_

For so many men, they moved extraordinarily quietly. Even their victim was light-footed, though there were hints in the noise distribution that they were heavier than average.

 _Zzzzzzt!_

" _Aaaahhh!"_ Agony painted every decibel of the yell that burst past clenched teeth.

Bodies collided with metal in a muted _clash!_ Trash cans, rather than a dumpster. Coupled with the direction, they were deep in the Kitchen –

"HEY!"

Sound exploded over him, and Matt startled.

"What are you, man, blind _and_ deaf? You want these dogs or not, Helen Keller?" _Irritation_ tanged against the inside of Matt's nose, exhaustion and Marlboros carrying to him on layers of stale and fresh sweat, overwhelming the mash of meat-oil-mustard-relish he could almost taste swirling in the air around the stand.

He swallowed, mouth closed to cut the strength of the scent. "Sorry. I thought I heard something."

 _Irritation_ intensified. "Yeah, me too. I heard a lot of somethings. It's New York, pal. $12.50, or let the next guy through."

Matt felt out a ten and three ones. "Keep the change."

The vendor snorted, shoving two paper cartons against Matt's fingers as he fumbled over the narrow ledge substituting as counter space. "Yeah, whatever, next!"

 _CRASH!_

Matt's next step faltered at the sudden cacophony of metal, lost to everyone around him in the crush of noise clogging the fourteen blocks between him and the fight.

His cane _scraped_ out along the pavement, sweeping the sidewalk clear of unwary pedestrians more than anything else. The wave of sound that floated up sharpened details enough to let him make out near-soundless motions that would otherwise be invisible – one young woman bending her fingers in the universal _call me_ ; a grandfather's toothless grin; a small child's finger pointing at a sign on a passing bus.

Three yards and a moment to stoop near the ground divested him of the hot dogs, surprising a nattering homeless man into a momentary bubble of silence as he passed. _Sorry about lunch, Foggy_.

Most of the Kitchen's dirty work took place at night, but not all. And this wasn't a back-alley brawl, or a gang clash. It was –

 _Quiet. Too quiet._

Frown creasing his brow over tinted lenses, Matt slipped into an alley only two blocks from the hot dog stand. Nimble fingers collapsed his stick while he angled his head, carefully filtering out unnecessary sound to focus his hearing.

 _"Mff."_

Cloth _swishing_ and the _creak_ of leather as they started to pull themselves to their feet. Eight heartbeats, muffled by Kevlar. The men were a mix of unconscious, and coming down from the exertion of a fight; but not a single one was in serious distress. Plastic _bang_ ed roughly off brick, followed by a metal rattle –

 _"Get up. Get out of there, now."_

 _"What happened?"_

 _A breath loaded with incredulous frustration. "He's gone. Report in."_

Further out – the odd noise of that uneven gait, imperfectly balanced, one leg just slightly shorter than the other. Moving quickly – enough that he almost lost it for a moment, except –

 _His heartbeat is too slow for a pace that fast._

Matt slipped back out into the passing crowds. He dodged a father-son pair hissing back and forth in Spanish about rent, and sidled into a deserted side-street rife with fire escapes. Two minutes had him on the roof, delayed by smooth-soled business shoes slipping in the wetness misted across every surface by the morning's persistent fog.

 _"- sir."_

The same voice as before, conversing with someone even more distant, over a phone that _click_ ed every so often.

Focused on the conversation, Matt swerved around the bulk of an HVAC unit, keeping an ear on that ever-more distant uneven gait, paired with an interestingly low heartrate.

 _"We're down to half-strength. Injuries only, no casualties, but three of my men are still unconscious."_

Matt vaulted a low ledge into crunching gravel, and jogged the distance to the next gap between buildings.

 _"Clean up and head out. Report back for debrief."_

 _"And the target?"_

He wasn't imagining the chill frosting over the next words he heard.

 _"Wipe the site."_

 _"Yes, sir."_

Even as he listened, a short jump brought him closer, shaving two blocks off the street-level route. His shoes skidded briefly across slick asphalt, and he barked some skin off one hand grabbing the concrete ledge for stability.

 _"Transport en route. ETA two minutes to extraction."_

 _"Copy. Over."_

Still roughly half a mile away, Matt abruptly veered east, re-focused on the odd stride matching that slow and steady heartbeat. _Can't get there in time._ Not in a business suit, even moving as the crow flew; three buildings over was an avenue-wide span that would force him back down to street level to cross. From there he would lose time either re-gaining the rooftops or continuing on the pavement at a sufficient clip without attracting attention.

The "target," though, would be similarly constrained. A man, moving at street level - with all the delays for car and foot traffic that mode of travel brought with it.

Pinpointing the probable location of the fight on his mental map of the Kitchen, Matt darted away over buildings toward that distinctive tread. _Back for that later_.

 _Thump-thump, thump-thump, thump-thump._

The sound got louder as he got closer, managing to halve the distance between them before he lost the gait to the first traffic stop.

Still moving, Matt threw his hearing wider, searching -

 _Fzzzzzzzzzzzzzz!_

 _Ah!_ Lips peeled back in a grimace, Matt carefully lowered the palms he'd slapped over his ears at the high-pitched electrical _buzz_ shrieking along his nerves. Not a continuous sound despite what it felt like; instead, a series of individual _ping_ s so rapidly produced that they were layered almost atop one another, and so far into the highest registers of his hearing that the noise was more _felt_ than _heard_. _What the hell?_

It moved.

 _Not a power line._ And given the intensity and pitch paired with how oddly _faint_ the noise was . . . _Not a cell phone either._

That uneven tread was back as well. Moving away from Matt in the same direction, at the same rate.

Coldness gripped Matt's insides, icy fingers curling through his gut. _Why are they tracking him?_

Definitely not for any good reason.

 _If he's dangerous enough to take out a para-military group deployed on US soil to retrieve him without alerting law enforcement . . ._

Which was a completely different, though not unrelated, problem.

A short slew of rooftops interspersed with narrow jumps brought him to a fire escape at the back of a building half a block from the "target." Taking advantage of the slipperiness lingering from the morning fog, Matt slid down the ladder. A few stray pieces of trash _crunched_ underfoot on his landing.

Stick rattling out in a familiar sequence of _click_ s, Matt stepped over three massive trash bags and emerged onto the street between two stores, one that smelled like a deli and the other which sounded like a barbershop. Head tilting, he pushed past the hair-raising _fzzzz_ to match up gait and heartbeat.

 _There_.

A man. Taller than Matt had estimated based on the time between his footfalls. _He was moving faster than I thought . . ._ Staying close to the sides of the buildings, avoiding contact with people though the crowds were starting to thin. _Must be edging towards two o'clock._ Wearing - hooded top, baggy - _Probably a sweatshirt._ Pants, close around the waist but excess material at the legs . . . _lots of pockets? Cargo pants?_ Too thin for the day's cold weather. And - _oh._

His left boot was missing the heel, throwing his stride off and into the odd gait that Matt had followed across a good chunk of Hell's Kitchen. The other heel wasn't completely attached, either; if it hadn't been made of such durable rubber, it would have been flopping away from the rest of the sole. But the soles themselves sounded too thick to be old shoes prone to that kind of breakage.

 _Curiouser and curiouser._

The man darted between parked cars and across an empty street, but continued in the same direction. Matt waited until the end of the block before crossing, keeping the stick as unobtrusive as possible.

The heartbeat didn't increase, but _fight-or-flight_ colored the man's wake, almost lost to the sugar-tinged wave of air following three women's exit from Giacomo's Bread  & Butter. _He knows he's being followed._

Matt fell back, letting two teenagers holding hands cut in front of him. The buzzing lessened in intensity, dampened by brick and concrete. _He turned after the bakery._ As soon as Matt breached the alley's mouth, the _fzzzz_ bounced back to him, reverberating off metal. No more footsteps; the heartbeat crouched slow and steady behind a dumpster.

 _This is probably not a good idea._

Matt swept his stick out, striding forward until it hit the dumpster's edge. He tapped along it more than necessary, turning himself into the corner while his ears stayed locked on that unmoving beat. _Lost and blind, oops, nothing to worry about here -_

Strong hands planted on his shoulders, a quick twist bumping Matt back against solid brick. His stick's handle fell into a puddle with a _splash_. Breath escaped him in a solid _whoosh_ , leaving him gasping in surprise. Heat loomed, pressing his spine into the wall. _Too fast!_

"Who _are_ you!"

 _Curiosity killed the cat, Matthew._

He could almost hear Foggy's voice countering Sister Anne's. _But dude, satisfaction brought it back._

"Matt," he managed after a moment. "Matt Murdock."

For some reason, _that_ brought his assailant up short.

This close, Matt could make out regular features, straight nose, strong jawline. Ruffled hair, longer than he would have expected for active-duty military and swept to the side in a style that made him think of Cary Grant.

"My name is Matt Murdock." Mind scrambling, Matt sucked in a quick breath. _Maybe . . ._ "Look, if you want my wallet-"

"You were following me." Absolute surety, in that voice.

 _Okay, maybe not._ "Yes," he admitted after a moment.

Hands fisted at his lapels, bringing Matt up to his toes and knocking him roughly back against the wall one more time. His feet scrabbled against the wall, but he couldn't find purchase.

"Why!"

 _Strong enough to lift and hold almost two hundred pounds with no effort._

But the man's core was open, leaving him vulnerable to strikes from Matt's knees or elbows - if he could pull his legs or arms in enough to get any power behind the hit, given how close the man was looming. For all he was off-balance, pinned, and cornered, Matt was still conscious and not hurt. _Eight men down in under three minutes, but no casualties._

The bulb went off. _He's trying to scare me._

Not exactly the act of a ruthless killer. He'd dealt with enough of those in the Kitchen to know a regular blind businessman would probably need an ambulance – or a coroner – by now.

"They're tracking you," Matt tried.

 _Stillness_. Sudden, and absolute - except the heartbeat that had jumped at his words. This close, Matt could see calmness sweep over the other man's face. _Danger_ ; sending his own adrenaline spiking, saturating the thin space between their bodies with Matt's own _fight-or-flight_. Muscles tensed, even as he tried to smother the reaction.

The man noticed.

 _Oh, shit._

"How do you know that?" the man hissed, hiking him a little higher against the brick.

Matt swallowed, shoving down the urge to rip himself away, get some distance. "It's obvious you're worried about someone following you -"

Seams _creaked_ as fingers tightened on Matt's clothes. "Try again."

"I can hear it."

Matt's feet settled back on the ground a moment later, fists releasing from his shirt.

"What?"

"I can hear it. Whatever bug they've got planted on you. It's really high, and really faint, but it's pretty distinctive."

"Bug?"

"Tracker. You know."

Silence. He - _didn't_ , actually, Matt could discern the thinnest thread of confusion flashing over his face, but the man apparently decided that didn't matter. "What are you?"

 _Suspicion_ was a difficult to define. It tasted a little like fear and a little like anger; some people accompanied that taste with looming violence and some, like this man, didn't. Matt usually classified it by the category of silence - of voice, of body - that accompanied the _fear/anger_.

"I'm a lawyer."

 _That_ was a silence Matt was more familiar with.

"Really," Matt fumbled for one pocket, pulling out sharp-edged paper. "Nelson & Murdock. Here." he extended the card between two fingers, and waited.

And waited.

Matt almost missed the man turning away, so quiet was the move. But his first two steps toward the street had Matt dropping the card, reaching out to grab for the hooded sweatshirt and missing. _Shit, no -_ "Hold on - wait - wait!"

Not even a flicker of interest.

Inspiration struck and he almost stumbled over the words in his haste to get them out. "Just - did you see where my stick fell? Please?"

"Eight inches to your three o'clock." He didn't even turn.

Matt scuffed his feet, kicking the stick with a loud _clatter_. "Oh, damn -"

The man paused, and glanced back.

Matt made a show of reaching out, holding back a grimace as he fumbled with bare hands over filthy cement. He couldn't hide the way his nose wrinkled as he splatted one palm into a puddle of sludge. It took a minute or so of turning himself deliberately away from the stick that hadn't shifted more than four inches from his kick, before he heard steps coming back.

A minute later one broad palm curved around his elbow, pressing upwards until they were both standing. Cloth _shush_ ed against faux-leather for a moment. _What's he -_

The handle of his stick, when it nudged against his open palm, was dry if not clean. _Oh._ "Thanks," Matt sighed.

The man hesitated. "You're blind?"

"Legally. And totally. No light perception." He tilted his head, and waved one hand toward his face. "Thought the glasses and stick gave it away."

The man took a step back.

 _Now or never._ Matt swept his stick out, stepping forward. "Let me help you."

"You can't." More of that absolute surety. The man moved toward the street, his uneven gait strong in Matt's ears under the persistent _fzzzzzz_ that refused to diminish.

"Give me a chance," Matt implored. He followed closely, even as the man exited the alley for populated sidewalk. The sky hung heavy overhead; the scent of rain wafted down.

"This isn't your fight," the man said.

 _He means it. Huh._ Of all the things Matt had expected to hear, sincerity hadn't even made the list. _Giving me an out. I'm almost there._ "I don't need to be asked to do the right thing," Matt responded. He pulled level with the man, sure to give the impression they were walking together. "And it doesn't cost anything to talk."

"It could cost your life," the man retorted grimly, and sped up.

"I'm tougher than you think," Matt responded, matching him step for step.

The man paused as they caught up to a slow-moving older couple, before dropping behind Matt and steering him around them with a hand on his bicep. Though inexpert, even that motion was gentle, rather than the proprietary or pushy hands that had guided Matt in the past. He didn't have Foggy's familiarity with the role of acting as Matt's eyes, but Matt wasn't going to come away from the contact with bruises to his arm, shins, or dignity. "How do you know they're not looking for me for a reason?"

 _Gotcha._ "They are. They have to be," Matt asserted. "But I know your first instinct wasn't to hurt me, even though you had me dead to rights with more than enough reason to suspect anyone following you. I know that you were going to let me walk away, thinking that I had seen your face. That tells me that whoever's after you isn't after a killer."

"You don't know that."

 _Para-military force on US soil. Captain._ It wasn't a gamble. "There's a very significant difference between soldiers and murderers."

The quiet now was one of surprise, and it stretched out for longer than Matt had hoped. "If they sent troops after you, on American soil, that's not just illegal but unconstitutional. There are procedures that exist. No matter what you did, you're entitled to due process - whether that's in a court of law or a military tribunal I don't know, but I can make sure it happens - properly."

His pause this time was longer, considering. The unceasing _fzzzz_ sent out a wave of sound that threw the details around the man into sharp relief to Matt's senses, but whatever thoughts passed through his mind weren't reflected on his face.

Matt kept up for another block in silence, before he couldn't take it anymore. "They're still tracking you. If they came for you before, they won't stop. You need help. Not the least, to get rid of that bug before they find you again."

That stopped him, abruptly, in the middle of the sidewalk. Luckily, it was more empty than full at this point. Matt was able to avoid slamming into the other man's back, though he did let his stick _whack_ against one booted ankle.

When the man turned, Matt sensed his stare, aimed squarely at unseeing eyes as if Matt's blindness meant nothing. An eternity passed before he spoke. "You have no idea what you're getting yourself into."

 _Yes!_ "I usually don't," Matt grinned. He ignored the suppressed sigh that got him, focusing instead on the small smile and shake of the head. He held out his hand, though it was still filthy from pressing over the ground minutes earlier. "Matt Murdock, of Nelson  & Murdock. Nice to meet you ….?"

The man's hand met his, regularly calloused in no pattern Matt could recognize, grip strong and unhesitating. "Steve."

"It's good to meet you, Steve."

* * *

 _I'm gonna kill him. Justifiable homicide. No jury in the world would convict._

Foggy rubbed burning eyes, re-focusing on the haze of tight print and citations making up the pile of caselaw in front of him.

"Hey, Foggy." Karen shut the door with a _clatter_ , heels _click_ ing across the floor.

"Hi." He looked up.

In the dim light of the few lamps they could afford, long blonde hair glowed golden. "I got those papers filed with the clerk at the Supreme Court. And managed to pick up the opposition's motion for summary judgment in Mrs. Cardenas's case, while I was at it. You know, the one the firm said failed to send?"

"Yeah." _Oh, right -_ Foggy stood up, stretching, and moved to lean against his doorjamb. "Did the repair guy say what was wrong with the fax machines?"

Karen shot him a tight smile. She leant over the front of her desk, long fingers sorting through the stack of mail that had toppled in her absence. "The fax machine was never broken. And no, we didn't lose phone service either." She held up an envelope, one of the few not ominously stamped with FINAL NOTICE.

"Gamesmanship," Foggy sighed, running a hand through his hair. "Gotta love it. But thanks for that, we probably won't get the mailed copy for a few more days. Having it earlier will save some stress."

"Yeah, well, I skimmed it over on the subway back. You're not going to like it." She shifted around her desk, shrugging free of her raincoat. A few lone droplets spattered the floor, but the plastic wasn't drenched.

"Oh, I can guarantee I won't like it. But that's Matt's problem. Is it raining?"

"Just started. It's not that heavy yet." Finished hanging the coat on their wobbly rack, she turned with pursed lips. "Speaking of Matt," Karen tossed a thumb at the empty office across the lobby from where Foggy rested against chipped molding. "Where is he?"

 _The sixty-four thousand dollar question._ "He left to grab lunch. Wanted to stretch his legs." Foggy stepped further into the lobby, stretching his own. _Owww, I was definitely hunched over those papers for too long._

Karen blinked, settling into her chair. "It's almost four. That's a pretty late lunch."

"Yeah," Foggy grunted, rolling his shoulders back and straightening his spine. _Okay, that feels better._ It was just a few steps to Karen's desk, but he felt refreshed for taking them.

She held out a few envelopes, and he accepted, checking over each return address. _Junk. ABA, probably want dues. Junk. Office bill we probably can't pay. Student loans I definitely can't pay. More junk._

"Do you know when he's going to be back? There's a few things here with his name on them."

"I have _no idea_ ," he couldn't stop the growl, tearing into one of the envelopes. _Yep, dues. Nope._ The papers tore easily and landed in the trash with an unsatisfying _sshhhh_ against thin plastic.

"Well, when did he leave?"

"About . . ." Foggy twisted one wrist to check his watch. "Three hours and forty minutes ago." The second envelope flapped open easily, offering to provide economic assessment for clients injured in an accident. _Why won't they stop sending these!_ Going into personal injury would be a financial step up, at this rate - despite the steep initial investment costs. He didn't even bother tearing it apart, just dropped it in the trash.

"What?" Karen focused on her computer screen even as pale brows arched in surprise. "Where was he going?"

 _Aaaand the rent payment that we - nope, can't pay in full. Great._ Foggy set that one down on Karen's desk. "Stan the Man's."

"The hot dog guy by the subway?" She glared at the bill.

"Yep." Foggy didn't bother to open the last piece of junk mail, tucking the student loan notice into his back pocket and dropping the offer for a credit card into the trash.

"That's five minutes from here."

"Yep."

Karen folded her hands on her desk, looking up at him with worry dawning in blue eyes. "Have you tried calling him?"

Foggy pulled his phone from his pocket, unlocked it and hit speed dial. Seconds later a mechanized voice drifted from Matt's empty office. _Foggy! Foggy! Foggy! Foggy!_ "He left his phone at his desk. Because he was only going to be gone ten minutes."

Her shoulders lifted in a deep breath. "Do you think something happened?"

"Something better have," he muttered, steadfastly refusing the creeping unease tickling the back of his mind.

Their office door _clatter_ ed open. "Something did."

"Matt!" Relief painted itself across her features in a broad smile, even as she straightened to peer around him.

Foggy turned, and perched on the two inches of free space comprising the corner of Karen's desk. "The prodigal son returns. Sans hotdogs, I see." His stomach had long-since stopped growling, but he couldn't keep the crankiness at bay.

The door closed again with its familiar loud rattle.

"But not empty-handed." Matt held up a finger, two steps into the lobby.

Eyes aimed at the ceiling, Foggy took a deep breath. _Chill out. Don't kill him. Karen doesn't want to deal with another murder._ "I don't see any hotdogs, Matt. And if I did I wouldn't want one anyway, because it would probably be stone cold. Because you've been gone for -" Foggy checked his watch again, doing a little easy math, and felt his patience slip away entirely. "Three hours, forty-nine minutes, and eight seconds!"

"Which, by the way, I can't believe you guys voluntarily eat those things," Karen interjected, settled down in her chair and back to sorting through bills with a wrinkle between her brows.

"Hey, Stan's is a fine establishment," Matt protested, stepping closer to her desk.

"If you're looking for a heart attack by the time you're thirty-five," she muttered.

"That's if my partner doesn't drive me to one first. By disappearing for hours on end!" Foggy threw up his hands.

"I don't have lunch," Matt admitted, one hand up and open in a blatant _calm down_.

"No shit, Matt."

"But I did find a client."

"One that can pay?" Karen asked, holding up three pieces of paper with disturbing slashes of red ink.

Matt's wince told the whole story. _So much for that._

"I don't see a client," Foggy riposted, not about to get distracted. "Are they invisible now?"

"He should be arriving right about -"

 _Knock, knock._

"- now." Smugness painted itself across Matt's mouth in a broad smirk.

 _I hate it when he does that._ "Careful, or your face will stick that way," Foggy muttered.

He heard the smile in Karen's voice even as he stepped past Matt to open the door. "Saved by the bell."

"Hi," Foggy opened the door, and blinked. _Holy shit._ "Matt, this better not be an Abercrombie  & Fitch job elimination case."

"What?" asked the man on the other side of the door. Creases pulled the skin of his brow and around his eyes, but he was still model-handsome and ridiculously drenched.

"Nevermind," Foggy pulled the door wider, grabbing at professionalism like a drowning man for a lifejacket. "Come in. Karen, do we have any towels?"

She came around the side of her desk, smiling a little. "I'll see what I can find. In the meantime," she waved a hand to the sidebar where a battered Keurig sat. "You must be freezing. There's coffee."

The man's glance to the coffee machine turned into a stare, but he managed a quiet "Thank you." He didn't move from his spot two steps into the room.

"Steve," Matt came forward as Karen slipped away to the conference room off Foggy's office. He shut the door; Foggy heard the latch sliding into place. _What the hell, Matt?_ "This is my partner, Foggy Nelson. Foggy," Matt swept one arm towards the guy. "Steve Rogers."

Foggy extended a hand, pulling on a polite smile. "Nice to meet you, Mr. Rogers."

Blue eyes dragged away from the sidebar and met his gaze directly. "Just Steve is fine."

The grip around his palm started off startlingly strong, and then immediately lessened to a bearable pressure. _Ow – only, not_. "Okay, Steve. Why don't you and Matt come into my office and bring me up to speed on what you hope Nelson  & Murdock can do for you."

A few _squelch_ ing steps across the office had Rogers glancing back at his wet footprints with a wince. "Sorry -"

"Don't worry about it," Karen cut in from just inside Foggy's office. In her arms was the – absolutely hideous – blue-green quilt Mr. Ramirez's wife had paid them for clearing up his bench warrant from a backlog of parking tickets. "We don't have any towels, but this should help."

Rogers frowned, and Karen had to practically push the quilt on him to get him to dry his hair. A few moments later she'd gotten him installed by the radiator, which despite the partially-paid bills was still somehow pumping out enough heat for Rogers' clothes to steam faintly in the closed conference room. He was staring at a corner of the quilt, rubbing the stitching between his fingers.

Seated across the table from him, Foggy glanced at Matt. His partner was thin-lipped, head tilted slightly in Rogers' direction. _Come on, Matt. A little help, please?_ "I want you to know that everything you tell us will remain confidential, Steve. Whatever the problem is, we're bound by lawyer-client confidentiality, and that protects anything you have to say." _Unless you tell us you're going to go out and murder someone._

But for all he was big and could probably bench press Foggy, there was something lost in his eyes, and something small about the way he curled next to the radiator. _Appearances can be deceiving_. Still. This guy didn't really look the type.

Rogers gave him a tight-lipped nod, and nothing else; blue eyes were a little distant, and his breath was ever-so-slightly beginning to speed up.

"Matt?" Foggy kept his voice even, projecting a calm he wasn't quite feeling. _Is he having a panic attack?_

His partner's first question was nothing Foggy had even thought to anticipate. "Why were they tracking you, Steve?"

Foggy's teeth clamped shut, and he caught Karen's alarmed glance. _Tracking? "They"? What are you dragging us into now, Matt!_ A quieter, cynical thought bubbled in the back of his mind. _That would explain the anxiety._

"I don't know." Rogers had raised his head, eyes fixed on Matt's glasses. But the question at least had shaken him out of what might have been the beginnings of a panic.

Matt nodded, but without the edge he got when he smelled a lie. "Can you guess?"

"Nothing good," Rogers said tightly.

"What happened?" Matt pressed, leaning forward in his chair.

"Classified," Rogers shot back, and then he faltered. "I think. I don't -" he shook his head, dropping the quilt to pass one hand over his face.

This time, Foggy let the silence work for him, shaking his head at Karen when she took a breath to speak. _Classified? Ten bucks says this is way, way out of our jurisdiction._

After a few minutes, Rogers spoke. "I don't even know what day it is."

"Wednesday," Foggy said automatically.

The smile that got him was only a twist of lips. "Thank you. But - that doesn't help."

"April 11th," Karen said.

He just looked at her.

For a moment, they sat in silence.

"It's 2012," Matt offered.

Rogers' face washed white so quickly that Foggy reached out a hand. "Are you okay?"

"No," he breathed, hands wrapped around the edge of the table. Something _creak_ ed; his knuckles jutted white. "I don't think so."

Foggy had seen a lot of devastation in the Kitchen; people who'd lost homes, lost loved ones, lost themselves. This look was all of that, and more.

"Steve?" Karen tried.

Rogers was staring out, blindly. A fine shiver worked through his frame, there-and-gone in a flash before he pulled the quilt a little tighter over broad shoulders. Foggy watched his throat move in a hard swallow. "I had a date."


	2. Chapter 2

_Okay._ She darted a last glance at the instructions, crumpled paper pinned down by the box on one side and a metallic tube on the other. _'Squeeze mixture onto hair, work through gently from roots until hair is saturated.' Hair saturated, check._

Freeing her fingers from newly-shortened strands, Karen reached one bent wrist toward the tap. "That should do it."

A broader hand beat her to the handle. "Let me."

"Thanks." Water spattered half-heartedly into the sink. Running plastic-covered fingers under the stream, Karen eyed her work carefully. In the shockingly white light of the bulb above the sink, dirty-blond had become a dark brown; as close as she could get to Matt's shade just by eyeballing the options in the corner drugstore. Cupped hands splashed away the trails of dye decorating the sink.

"You're welcome." He closed the spigot at her nod. "Thank you for -" One hand half-waved in the direction of his head.

"Don't thank me yet." Karen slinked her fingers free of the cheap gloves, laying them on the lip of the sink for later. "This is actually the hardest part."

Bleakness dulled the blue of his eyes. "Waiting usually is."

 _He's not talking about hair dye anymore._ And whatever Steve was seeing, it wasn't the office's cramped communal bathroom, always dingy despite her daily wipe-downs. _Distraction, now. Contact . . . careful._ Karen sidled by his perch on the closed toiled lid, gently jostling his knees on her way to the tiny shower stall. _Say something, say something -_ "Where did you serve?"

 _Great question, Karen; wasn't the goal to_ stop _him from having a flashback?_

Steve dipped his head, rubbing the rag she'd scrounged up across the back of his neck. When his face turned up, blue eyes were clear.

 _. . . Whew._ A few quick pulls spread out his sopping sweatshirt over the shower rod. One sleeve dripped forlornly. _Maybe that'll pull a little more water out before he has to put it on again._

He opened his mouth, and paused. "Um."

 _What – oh._ _Right._ "Let me guess. Classified?" She could wring it out, but that would set in wrinkles as it air-dried.

"I don't know if it would be, now," was the low answer.

 _Ouch._ She kept her voice soft. Wet cloth left testing fingers cold. "How long has it been?"

Steve still flinched, muscles standing out in his cheek as his jaw flexed. "Years," he gritted out.

 _"How did you end up in the hospital?" Anyone who wasn't familiar with Foggy would read posture and voice as neutral; familiarity gave her better insight. Skepticism was in the slash of his pen over paper, the very few notes he'd taken when their prospective client had haltingly told them about waking in what had most definitely not been a hospital room._

 _"I was on a mission."_

 _Black pen scratched over lined yellow paper. "What branch of the military?"_

 _"Army."_

For a man with such broad shoulders, he'd hunched himself down into space appropriate for someone much narrower.

"Well, it's supposed to take something like seventy-five years for the top-secret stuff to be eligible for declassification. Better not risk it," she tossed a quick smile over one shoulder. _He's late twenties, at most. So, five years? Six?_ Even that many was horrible. _Not more than that, surely._

Steve was staring in the mirror, at the dark shock of hair that had once been blond. "Do you think this is going to work?"

Turning around, Karen rested her back against the wall. "I think Foggy has a point."

 _"Most New York prison escapees are caught within the first six hours," Foggy said flatly. "The rest don't make it a day on the outside. Only one in the last year made it past twenty-four hours; and they had him back in a cell in three days."_

 _"Well, we're coming up on the six-hour mark." Matt slumped in the chair opposite Foggy's desk, oblivious to the exasperated glare his partner aimed at him._

 _Karen took over, trying not to stare too obviously through the thick pane of glass separating them from the man huddled by the radiator in the closed conference room. "What are you saying?"_

 _Notepad and pen hit the desk with a_ slap _as Foggy freed one hand to rub at his forehead. "I'm saying we need to tell him that he needs to seriously consider the merits of turning himself in."_

 _Karen startled away from her contemplation of their client even as the man's back stiffened ever-so-slightly. "To who?"_

 _Foggy's eyes were tired but deadly serious. "The police."_

 _"Have you seen any indication that the police are on a manhunt for a dangerous criminal? Any Emergency Alerts or breaking news interruptions? Because I haven't," Matt countered._

 _"That doesn't mean anything, Matt, and you know it."_

 _"Maybe not," Matt admitted. One finger traced aimless patterns against the scarred desktop. "But I know something about this isn't right, Foggy. And I believe him; he's telling the truth."_

 _"Just because someone thinks what they're saying is true, doesn't mean it actually is." The other lawyer plunked himself down at the desk with a sigh. "You've gotta give me something better than that."_

 _The pause that followed was considering._

 _Karen squinted at Foggy for a second._ Oh, no. That's his 'I'm not going to like this, am I' face. _Which meant he was reading something off Matt that she probably wasn't going to like, either._

" _I know he's not a danger to anyone who doesn't attack him first," Matt finally said._

 _"How do you know that?" Foggy pounced. "And this explanation better have something to do with why you were MIA from lunch for almost four hours."_

 _"He didn't hurt me."_

 _"Matt-!" She bit her tongue when he held up a hand, but Foggy didn't._

 _"God, Matt! Don't tell me that you walked up to someone you thought had beat the crap out of a squad of trained marines!"_

 _"I don't think they were marines."_

 _"I may actually kill you right now," Foggy said flatly._

 _Karen darted a glance at the conference room, and their client – whose face was still averted._

" _I'm fine," Matt said. "And that's my point. He thought I could identify him, Foggy. After roughing up eight guys who certainly weren't pulling their punches, and not giving a one of them more than an overnight in a hospital for observation." Matt reached out, pulling the legal pad away from Foggy's irritable doodling. "He tried to get me to walk away."_

 _Huh._

 _Foggy's huff said_ Maybe you should have. _But his words were, "Okay, fine, so he's not Ted Bundy. But we have no idea what he's mixed up in, and no idea if we can help him, Matt!"_

 _The man shifted a little, head tilting almost as if –_ No. The glass is thicker than it looks; that room is almost a tomb, even when the lobby is packed. _Which had happened a time or two._

" _They've already sunk a lot of resources into keeping and finding this guy. Who's to say they're not taking subpoenas to banks and police precincts right now, pulling traffic cams and ATM street views, running facial recognition and doing whatever else they have to, to track him straight to our door."_

 _The man was tense, now, back straightening, head up, face in full profile to the window._

" _I hope you took a course on military tribunals when I wasn't looking, Matt, because we're not JAG. We're in serious danger of being in over our heads on this one."_

 _The man's shoulders slumped._

 _"Well, Foggy, at least it's not an Abercrombie & Fitch job elimination case."_

 _"Really? That's_ really _what you're-"_

" _Guys," Karen interrupted, losing the fight to keep the surprise from her voice. "I think he can hear us."_

Steve met her eyes.

"And a little style change might throw them off long enough for you to fall off their radar." She'd clipped the longer ends of his hair short, washing them down the drain. Despite using the bathroom as a barber shop, the end result was still neater than the mess Matt sported. "At least until your beard comes in."

That got a rueful smile. "A bit, then." He shifted on the seat a little. "Facial… recognition?"

"Mmm-hmm. It's pretty much everywhere, these days." _And it's been around for more than a decade now; so why does he sound so confused? Wait, what's -_ Brushing two fingers against shredded cotton, Karen frowned. His t-shirt looked very new; as did the frayed edges of what had been a serged hem on the sleeve. "What happened here?"

"Transponders."

The cuffs of his pants were ragged, the pockets torn out; his shoes, for all they looked new, had something wrong with the soles and the stitching around his ankles.

 _He ripped his clothes apart._ "How did you even find them all?"

"I didn't," Steve muttered ruefully.

The words escaped before she could think better of it. "Where did they have left to hide anything?"

Pink painted his cheeks. "Um."

 _In something no one would think to check, and wouldn't – or couldn't easily – get rid of unless they had to._ Plus the blush, which left - _oh._ A hand came up to cover her mouth; heat flushed her face. "Sorry-"

Head ducked, one of his thumbs tugged at the dirty length of baling string standing in for a belt. "The button to the fly."

 _. . . Okay. Not the underwear._ But probably more necessary. _Well, that's uncomfortable. But clever. Sneaky, too._ "Who would even think to do that?" Blonde strands fell forward as she shook her head.

"Same person who found eighteen places to put them, probably," Steve muttered, brow furrowed.

 _Karen stared. "That's -"_

" _Insane," Foggy said flatly. "Probably illegal, but we won't know that until we know the whole situation." Which meant they needed to know what Steve had done – and what he was being charged with. Until she'd found herself on the other side of the police interrogation table, she hadn't really appreciated that distinction._

 _"It's not just precaution; there's too many for that," Matt muttered. "So why?"_

" _It wasn't hard to get out," Steve said quietly. "I knew right off I wasn't in a real hospital. And the room they had me in – the hallway outside it had a glass door leading straight out to the street."_

" _You're saying they let you escape?" Foggy said skeptically._

" _I'm saying I didn't wake up chained in a jail cell, or worse," Steve shot back._

What worse? _Karen frowned._

" _And I could have. Instead, they tried to hoodwink me into thinking everything was alright, and put transponders in my pockets where all I had to do to find them was look."_

 _"So, they wanted you to cooperate -" Foggy mused._

" _\- But took steps to find you again if you didn't," Karen finished._

" _And find you fast," Matt broke his silence. "No one bothers putting eighteen bugs on someone if they don't have the capability to follow each one independently. That they found you as quickly as they did, and tried to take you in by force, without an arrest warrant, and without charges – it's not proper military procedure. It's sure as hell not proper police procedure."_

 _"So the question becomes not just what's going on, but why," Foggy muttered. He was staring at their newest client, who was staring blankly back._

 _"That's a lot of trouble to go to," Matt added. "Thinking up and implementing a set-up to trick you into going along with them? And the expense, between the technology and the manpower, to track you down if it didn't work?"_

 _A muscle moved in Steve's jaw, and he swallowed, but didn't break his even stare at Matt's red glasses._

 _Questions loomed in Karen's mind, pushing past the little voice that sounded like her mother's admonishments to spill past her lips._

"Who are they?"

Steve shook his head, and blue eyes wouldn't meet hers. "I don't know." He sounded unconvinced of his own words.

 _He's – a pretty bad liar._ That was a little comforting, at least. "Really."

That got her the little wince she was watching for. She let silence do the rest of her work for her.

"I – can't be sure," Steve murmured. His fingers worried at the torn fringe of what had been an exterior leg pocket in his cargo pants. "If – before, I would have been certain. But now . . . It's been so long-" A grimace tightened his lips, and he turned away. "I just – I don't _know_."

 _That, I believe._ "Hey," Karen bent a little to meet his gaze. "We'll figure it out," she promised.

Steve's huff was pressed thin. "You're pretty certain."

"Yeah, well." Her eyes went to the dripping sweatshirt, and she couldn't quite drag them away. Rubbing her upper arms, Karen leant back to give herself a little space. "I was where you are now, not that long ago." She found a smile. "I didn't need to dye my hair, but – I was Nelson & Murdock's first client."

Surprise wrote itself across his features in raised brows. "You?"

"Hard to believe, but yeah." Karen cleared her throat. "I used to work in the financial department at Union Allied. It was a construction company that oversaw the bulk of the government contracts for the Harlem reconstruction."

That got her a blank stare.

Karen blinked. "From the Harlem Terror?"

Steve shook his head, blue eyes wide.

"It was in June, 2008." _It was on every news channel, like 9/11 all over again._ Far fewer casualties than the attacks on the Towers, mostly civilian rather than military, and completely terrifying. _And impossible to miss._ He hadn't given her a number of years, but this confirmed at least two.

"The _Harlem Terror_?" Steve managed. "What -"

"The Abomination was loose in Harlem, and the Hulk-" She caught a glimpse of his expression. _Not helping._ "And none of that means anything to you."

"No."

She'd succeeded in alarming him, from the pallor of his skin. "I'll try to dig up a copy of the article on the Bulletin's website for you."

"Right." He shook himself, and refocused. "You worked for a construction company?"

"Yep." _And aren't those just wonderful memories._ "I was a secretary. Union Allied secured most of the government contracts for the reconstruction, but it was still ongoing even four years later, there was that much work to do." Though really, by the time everything went to hell, the bulk of the repairs had been completed. "One day, I got an email that I shouldn't have. There was financial information attached that – didn't line up with other numbers on the official books." She swallowed, closing her eyes and tipping her head back against cool tile. "They were laundering money.

"When I found out – My boss laughed it off. I tried to go to a coworker, in the legal department. Someone who I thought would know what to do. His name was Daniel Fisher."

"Was?" Steve asked quietly.

Tears lodged in her throat, and Karen sniffed. "Yeah." _It's over. It's done. I lived._ And Daniel hadn't. _Stop it._ Memories had a lot of power; she was sick of being at their mercy. "Long story short, the company's owner set me up for Daniel's murder. That's when I met Matt and Foggy." _And then Wilson Fisk tried to have a cop kill me in prison. If it weren't for them, and for the Devil of Hell's Kitchen -_ "Nelson and Murdock are good at what they do. And they're good men. That's not so easy to find, especially in New York."

"What happened?"

Pain speared her palms; Karen unclenched tight fists. "Well. The money-laundering scandal made the news and the murder charges against me were dropped. Union Allied offered me a choice between being prosecuted for violating my employment contract's confidentiality clause, and a payout." That would _always_ rankle. "Daniel – he had a wife. I'd never met her, not until after he-" Copper burst over her tongue from the inside of her cheek; Karen unclenched her teeth. "They made her an offer, too – money for media silence. Daniel had two children. She wasn't going to fight it. My boss took the fall for the money laundering, and then apparently overdosed; so he's dead. Union Allied was liquidated, and what was left was bought up by other companies. So the company's gone." _All owned by Wilson Fisk._ "Problem solved. Every little piece taken care of, swept under the rug." Her lips tightened. "He's good at that."

"He?"

"The man who owned Union Allied." Karen eyed him for a second. _Bad liar about who's after him. But the rest ..._ She believed him.

Even so. Fisk was a man who inspired people to kill themselves rather than reveal his involvement. _And Steve's got more than enough problems of his own._

"Anyway." A glance at her watch sent Karen back to the sink; pulling on the spigot, she flashed the inside of one wrist against the faucet's output. _Not quite warm, but it'll get there soon enough._ "I think this is just about done."

"Oh."

The gloves were just as ill-fitting as on the first go-around, but easier to wiggle into this time. "Lean over?"

That brought Steve to a half-standing crouch, contorted over the sink to try to keep as much of the mess contained as possible.

Armed with a Styrofoam cup and determination, Karen tested the water again. _Warm enough._ A little bit of liquid was enough to work up the lather the instructions demanded. "Close your eyes," she directed.

The rag came up, shielding his face. Steve ducked lower into the sink.

The first few pours were slow, testing the paths the water would take as it pulled excess dye away. As advertised, the color left behind was a dark brown, though a few shades off from where she'd been aiming.

Nelson & Murdock's door clattered in its frame down the hall. _That's time. Looks like we're stuck with it._

Steve moved with the light pressure she applied, turning his head this way and that over the tiny sink. Each cupful of water sluiced away more lather. _Well, at least it's even, and it doesn't look fake. Not bad for a first try._ Aside from one failed attempt to turn her hair blue when she was thirteen, Karen had only ever watched her mother dye her hair.

Familiar steps, outside the open bathroom door.

"Almost done?" Matt leant against the jamb.

"Almost," Karen murmured, sparing him a glance. She guided the cup to spill around the shell of Steve's ear, sifting through newly darkened strands until the water ran clear. Another, just to make sure, and – "Done." But she kept both hands on his head as he straightened, easing him away from the possibility of hitting his head on the tap. "Careful."

When tattered cloth pulled away from his face, she could see the difference the cut and coloring had made. _Huh. This might just work – for a little while, anyway._ But then again, a little while was all they needed right now. "It's fine to dry off," she nodded at the rag.

Steve met her gaze squarely even as he scrubbed at one ear. "Thank you."

"You're welcome." His sweatshirt was nowhere near dry when she pulled it off the rod, the cloth chilled; it would be clammy again in moments when they went outside. _At least he had two hours to warm up._ "It's still a bit damp."

"Could be worse." Hood tugged over newly-darkened strands, Steve nodded at the baseball cap Matt had pulled low over his forehead.

He was her age, and even with his coloring, Steve's height and body shape meant there was never a chance he'd remind her of Kevin. But _that_ was familiar to the older sister of a brother obsessed with sports; and had her suppressing a smile rather than a sob. "Not a Yankees fan, I take it?"

"No," he ducked his head, tugging at a black hem to smooth the lie of the cloth over his chest and back.

"Here you go." Matt held out his glasses and collapsed cane. "I've already called for the cabs."

Steve handled the markers of Matt's blindness slowly; uncertainty suddenly apparent in the tilt of his shoulders. "You're sure you won't need these?"

"Positive. I spend a lot of time here; I know the building."

 _Then again . . ._ She could feel the frown crawl over her face as she looked at the two men side-by-side. The differences were staggering. _Four inches and more than fifty pounds. How good are those cameras he's worried about?_ Even with the premature darkness brought on by the day's rain and impending sunset . . . _This is not going to work._

Brushing by Matt to leave the bathroom, Karen rested a hand just below his elbow.

"Karen?"

"Matt," she hissed.

"What is it?"

 _Say it. Just say it._ "I'm not sure about all this cloak-and-dagger stuff."

"Why not?"

"Even without looking at your faces -" Karen interlaced her fingers and tugged, the pull against her knuckles a familiar distraction. "Your body types aren't anything alike." _And that's putting it mildly._

"It's going to be fine." A warm palm landed over her hands, and she stilled. "We're only going to be on the street for a handful of seconds, and moving quickly. Not long enough for anyone to get a really good look, especially in the dark and the rain."

"But the cameras -"

Matt shook his head. "Trust me." Blind or not, his smile was still aimed straight at her. "It's going to work."

* * *

 _Gotcha._

Fingertips pressing into the smooth metal tabletop, Jasper leant closer to the screens. Adrenaline clipped each word. "Give me street view, three minutes before and three after."

A few _clack_ s on a keyboard later, and the tech had a running video stream up; the view chopped jaggedly from one camera to another, seconds of black marking the gaps in coverage. "This is the best I can do, sir."

Dark eyes scanned the footage of Rogers ducking into a narrow space between two buildings. _Three GPS pings from 926541 before it started moving again. Six minutes in there, minimum; twelve, max._ He didn't reappear on camera for another seven after the last GPS ping; when he did, it was two streets over.

Jasper didn't sweat. His heart did not race. The starch of his collar itched the skin of his neck; his shirt pulled tight in the small of his back as he bent closer to the screen. _One day, Rumlow's going to cause more problems than he solves._ "Are there any views of the alley?"

"No sir." Uniformed shoulders shrugged in the corner of his vision. "There's no entrances there into the stores on either side. It's just a passageway, according to all the zoning maps. Nothing but trash cans, and fire escapes from the upper stories. It looks like no one bothered with the cost of wiring it."

 _Good._ "Damn." He stood straight, reaching for his tablet. "What about across the street, anything that gives even a partial view into the alley at all?"

That got him an incredulous look. "It's Hell's Kitchen. We're lucky to have even this much."

 _No need for further concern on that end, at least._ Standard site-wipe or not, the rest of Rumlow's screw-up was for the STRIKE team to clean up. The pull of his suit was too familiar to count as irritation, but after ten hours he was more than ready for a shower and change. Jasper twitched one shoulder, resettling his jacket over his holster, and unlocked the tablet.

"Agent Sitwell."

A familiar voice half-pulled him toward the door, which briefly outlined a shorter figure in black. Coulson could move silently when he wanted; and most of the time, he did. Jasper had been cured of startling in his first three months of working with the senior agent.

The other man nodded toward the screen, which showed Rogers passing a deli, clad in a newly-acquired black sweatshirt. "What do you have?"

"That was captured at 12:48:33 this afternoon." _Just before he shed the last bug._ On screen, Rogers' pale pants stood out like a beacon in the sea of dark denims and early spring coats. Before he'd covered up the white shirt, it had been a bright marker throughout choppy video spliced from various sources. "In Hell's Kitchen."

Two steps brought Coulson to Jasper's side, eyes fixed on the screens. _As if where he's looking ever means anything. No slips now._ Not with Coulson's attention locked on him.

The tech was still splicing together footage by timestamp. In the next row of computers, three analysts were constructing the timeline of Rogers' movements from escape to loss of the last bug, attempting to account for every second of time.

"Were there any bugs still on him at this point?"

Three swipes on the tablet's screen brought up a chart listing all bugs along with probable time of dispersal and eventual recovery location; another tap gave him the map of GPS routes that had peeled off from Rogers between 12:03:05 and the last GPS ping corroborated with camera evidence forty-five minutes later. _At 12:48… just 926541; by then 792438 was headed east in the delivery truck._ "One, sir. This is the last confirmed view while bugged. As far as we can tell, he shed the last bug between six and nine minutes after this image was taken."

Coulson's brow crinkled. "Is that the closest estimate to real-time? I was assured that ping-back had been reduced to three minutes."

Jasper tapped into the mapped pathway for 926541, pulling up a chart of times and coordinates. "The device was stationary before it started moving again," he murmured, scrolling down. "It pinged back twice from the same coordinates. The theory is that this is when he transferred it to the final decoy."

"Where?" Coulson held out a hand.

The map showed two dots, one mostly obscuring the other, on the line where two buildings divided. Zooming in, Jasper passed the tablet over. "Here."

"And it's confirmed that the bug was no longer with him at . . . 12:57?"

Jasper nodded. "At 12:57:36 the bug was in a taxicab headed south. The driver's been located and questioned; he never saw anyone approximating Rogers' appearance that day. His pickup was a block down from those coordinates; a man in a suit. Wearing-" a frown worked its way over his face. "Red sunglasses."

"Unusual choice for an overcast day."

 _Memorable, which works in our favor._ "The bug was retrieved fifty-three minutes ago from the steps of the New York Supreme Court on Central Street."

"It's 20:17 on a Wednesday night. Court's been closed for hours."

"That was where the passenger was dropped off. Seems he lost the bug there."

"And the delayed retrieval?" The blandness of Coulson's voice was cultivated to give no clues. But the fact that he was asking at all – _Tread carefully. When Coulson's pissed, the Director's pissed. And that's more attention than Rumlow needs._

"Field test as to the power source's longevity. And traffic." Jasper shrugged. "New York at its finest."

In anyone else, the loosening of posture would have been a positive sign. "What about the rest of them?"

"The fifteen bugs we were able to retrieve are back in R&D for data retrieval and performance analysis." Jasper kept his eyes on the tablet's charts.

"Only fifteen?"

"One was crushed in the compressor of a garbage truck, as far as we can tell. Two others failed prematurely. They were in beta-testing. The power sources died earlier than projected. They were still moving as of the last signal, and there were no traces at those locations," Jasper shrugged. "Given that it looks like Rogers preferred to leave most of the devices with moving decoys, they've been written off."

With all the data in charts and graphs, it was easy enough to accidentally confuse a few columns and rows here and there. Especially with so many devices to keep track of. _At least 129573 failed and was recovered; two more duds out of the lot shouldn't attract too much attention._

"Any indication where he went next?"

"We're scanning all camera footage using grid patterning. Nothing so far; mostly because of the area."

"Oh?"

"Hell's Kitchen." Jasper tilted his head. "If you're headed out there, leave Lola in the garage. And take a few extra clips." Convenient as it might be to have a less observant boss, Coulson at least recognized competence and was Jasper's fastest opportunity for advancement.

"I intend to." Coulson met his eyes for a moment. "The Director wants a report at 0600." _Which really means that the Director wants Rogers back here by 0600._ "Call me when you find something."

* * *

"- made it home fine." Murdock paused, shifting some things around on the countertop out of Steve's line of sight. If he focused, he'd be able to hear what Ms. Page was saying on the other end of the connection, but it wasn't important enough to eavesdrop more than he couldn't avoid. "Yeah. See you tomorrow. Goodnight."

The thin rectangle disappeared from view as Murdock lowered it to the counter.

 _It's a phone. Unbelievable._ Everything was smaller, sleeker, and in some cases, completely unrecognizable. _What Bucky wouldn't give to see this._

Loss ached behind his ribs, months – _decades?_ – old and familiar.

 _Don't. Don't think about it._

Nothing was what it had been only the day before – _no. Seventy years ago._ Tightness clenched his lungs; he could feel his chest working, breath speeding. _Everything is gone. Everyone is –_

"- hungry?"

"What?" Steve flinched back from the voice before him. _When did he –_

Red lenses reflected the harsh light from the flashing billboard outside the apartment window. Electricity, _everywhere._ Murdock had the phone by one ear, and Steve had been so swallowed by his thoughts he hadn't heard the other man approach. "I'm ordering pizza. When was the last time you ate?"

 _1945._ Fingers clenching on one another to keep from digging into dingy yellow upholstery, Steve swallowed and managed a shrug. Then he remembered. _Can't see. Right._ "I don't know."

The rapid way Murdock moved around the apartment made it easy to forget. The cane had been folded and left on the table by the door; even so, there wasn't the least hesitation in his step.

"- meat lover's, and one veggie -"

Not like the few mustard gas survivors he'd seen growing up. The lucky didn't have to wear masks to hide their scars in public. The unlucky… _Did we even win the war?_

"Yeah. Large."

There had been an American flag, well-kept and hanging over the street when he'd first escaped. _We must have. Hitler wouldn't have stopped until the entire world was under his thumb._

"What's the total? …Okay."

A wince pulled at his face before he could stop it. _How am I ever going to pay them back?_ The cab fare alone was more than two months' rent. Or it had been. _Sixty-seven years' worth of inflation. I don't even want to know what it did to the price of rent._

Granted, it had been a circuitous ride, out to a deserted corner of the docks that Murdock somehow knew had no surveillance cameras. Which apparently wouldn't stop satellites, whatever those were. _"Just whatever you do, don't look up."_ For all he'd smiled, there had been nothing joking in Murdock's tone.

 _Stark used to sound like that._

Sixty-seven years. _They might not all be dead._ It was a long time. But even if they survived the war –

"Fogwell's Gym." Murdock sprawled in the couch opposite, face tilted Steve's way.

He blinked. "I'm sorry?"

"It's where my dad trained. He was a boxer. I like to go there, sometimes." Between the darkness of the room and how quickly it disappeared, Steve almost missed Murdock's small smile entirely. "It's good to have a place to work it all out." Red lenses tipped toward him in a brief nod. "I get the feeling you have a lot to work out."

A huff of laughter escaped without Steve knowing he had it in him. "Sounds about right."

"Yeah, well. A few extra bucks and the janitor will let you stay after closing."

Something in his spine stiffened. "About that." Heat flushed in his throat, climbing to warm both cheeks. "I'll repay you, and Miss Page, soon as I can."

As soon as he could what? Get a job, when he couldn't even step outside without the threat of HYDRA tracking him down? Teeth ground together; he needed a long breath to loosen his jaw. _It doesn't matter._ The right thing to do was rarely easy. _Used to that, at least._ "Somehow."

Murdock leant forward with sudden intent. "Tell me who's after you."

Something that might have been amusement tugged at the corners of Steve's mouth. "You don't give up, do you?"

"Not generally. Look." Even with his eyes hidden behind those glasses, Murdock's tight expression pinned Steve to the chair. "You want to repay me; well, we both know that right now you don't have any way to do that. But you can give me information."

Pressure _twing_ ed at his temples, there and gone in the space of a few breaths; as much of a headache as he'd had in nearly three years. _I think I know why._ The _why_ was easy; there would only ever be one reason why anyone would be after him. _Knowing why tells me who. But it's been so long . . ._ And if he was wrong.

 _The world has changed._ And he hadn't kept up. _If it's not HYDRA, then who? The military? The government?_ Senators hadn't been sitting in on Dr. Erskine's procedure for the entertainment value. _"You're an experiment. You're going to Alamagordo."_

That would be bad.

It would be far worse, if he was right.

Shaking his head, Steve pushed out of the worn armchair, aiming for the impression of open space given by the windows. Worn brick was comforting against his shoulder-blades; Steve leant back against the narrow wall separating massive glass panes. Rough clay pulled at the thin shirt he'd woken in. "I can't give you what you want."

"You mean you won't," Murdock pressed. Exasperation tensed the line of his shoulders, clipping each word short. "This is my city. I do what I can to protect the people in it. To do that, I need to know what the threats are."

And HYDRA was a threat. The people they would kill - not only those standing in their way, but anyone connected to their opposition, hell, anyone standing nearby could be collateral damage.

But.

 _Time makes things irrelevant. Given enough time . . ._ "Bad information can be worse than none at all." Steve couldn't stop bleakness from bleeding into every word. _Ambushes. Traps. Worse._ "I don't know enough to tell you anything with any certainty." _Not until I can check -_

Everything.

And he'd have to go to a history book, not a newspaper, to do it. Steve swallowed against the pit that opened up in his stomach.

Murdock's silence turned out to be the furthest thing from idleness. "You were in intelligence."

Peggy wouldn't have blinked. Steve wasn't as skilled as Peggy, not by a long shot. Blind or not, there was something very sure about Murdock's nod at Steve's hesitation.

The Commandos had been attached to the S.S.R., which was tasked with countering and eliminating HYDRA. To do that, information was required; necessary to support their missions and Stark's focus on research and development. But for the most part, the OSS and SOE had things well in hand. _And the SSR needed to concentrate on the Red Skull._ That meant missions which were more likely to involve blowing up tanks than using code phrases.

"No," Steve finally muttered.

Four square indents in Murdock's rug, evenly spaced between the couch and armchairs, describing a rectangle. _Table, maybe?_ Or maybe the rug itself used to belong elsewhere, and was still carrying impressions of its former life.

"All I need is a name."

Hand scrubbing over his face, Steve couldn't hold in the sudden bitterness. "I don't even have that." _I don't have anything._

* * *

 _"What've you got?"_

"Something interesting." Grit scraped roughly under his fingertips. Cartilage cracking in his knees, Coulson stood, eyes fixed on broken pavement under the edge of a dented dumpster. _What kind of force does it take to make steel gouge through asphalt?_ "Send a team to my location."

Sitwell didn't pause. _"Anything specific they should be looking for?"_

"Everything." Taking two steps backward, Coulson opened his camera's phone and started snapping pictures. "There was a fight here. Someone tried to wipe the site." _Which means it wasn't just gangs or happenstance. That takes training._ And from the look of it, high-level training.

 _If I hadn't seen the gouged asphalt . . ._ The overflowing metal trash cans were suspiciously sound for how old they looked. The tightly-packed bags of garbage were a nice touch. _Given that pickup isn't for another three days._ Even the cockeyed dumpster with a small accumulation of debris between it and the filthy brick wall had the ring of authenticity. _If it wasn't a little too far down the alley and strategically placed to cover the marks left by bean-bag rounds._ Still. Even with nothing to be done about the flat-out missing bottom ladder of the closest fire escape… _They're good._ "The rain didn't help."

 _"Team en route; ETA nine minutes."_

Coulson ended the call with the press of a button. The street outside the alley was deserted. _01:00 on a Thursday morning in Hell's Kitchen._ Despite the rumble of noise from the bar whose bricks formed one wall of the alley, no one was entering or exiting. From the crime stats alone there should be more people visible than a lone cashier behind the counter at a 24-hour DeliMart three storefronts down.

Instead, he was left with pools of neon reflections on dirty sidewalk, and the oddly peaceful gurgle of water falling down a sewer grate. A quarter of a mile away, a taxi was briefly visible before it passed through an intersection and disappeared.

 _Reminder: get all the data from the bugs still on the Captain as of 12:14._

The route Captain Rogers had walked to the next alley had taken him somewhere between twelve and fifteen minutes to traverse. The same 1.3 miles took Coulson nearly half an hour at a steady walk. He finally paused beneath a ragged canopy, _Giacomo's Bread & Butter_ scrawled across a glass door in age-spotted gold paint _._

To his right, the alley's mouth was a gaping maw seeping blackness into the street. A few of the streetlights were dark. _Freshly shot out. Not a particularly welcoming place to stop._ It would be less intimidating during the day; not that a veteran of the Second World War was likely to be put off by a shady back alley in New York City.

Light flared, offensively bright against the deepness of night. Coulson aimed his flashlight into the maw, leaving his weapon holstered for the moment. Metal glinted, luring him deeper.

Twenty feet back, behind a set of dumpsters clumped against the right-hand wall, stretched solid metal grating. He followed it in an unbroken line barring the width of the alley, to the brown-crusted padlock snugged against flaking concrete. _Rusted shut._

Neither the height nor the lock were a deterrent to someone with Captain Rogers' capabilities. _But he didn't go through or over; he was in here for six minutes, then came back out again._ And the fence would have been easily visible during the day, overcast or not. _So why?_

Fence at his back, Coulson skimmed his light over the alley, hunting. _He knew he was being tracked. He worked with Howard Stark, who helped develop advancements in cathode-ray directional finding._ Even if Captain Rogers hadn't known the extent of the technology, it had existed during his time.

 _But no one was following him._ Which was the other obvious answer for ducking into an alley. _And when he came back out, he continued in the same direction as before._ At which point he'd planted the last bug on a decoy.

 _Final check,_ Coulson decided. Eighteen bugs were enough to make anyone paranoid that perhaps they'd missed one. _He got rid of them as quickly as he could once he realized they were there._ But 926541 had stayed with the Captain for seventy minutes.

A spot of white caught his eye, stark against the gray of old asphalt. Weapon holstered, Coulson pulled a plastic bag from one pocket and crouched low. From the size and shape… _Business card. Good stock._ And though the paper was soaked through, it was still whole and white. Too whole to have weathered all of the prior day's multiple rain showers; too white to have suffered any careless feet.

 _Dropped twenty hours ago, max._ Careful fingers peeled one corner of the small square up from the ground. Waterlogged, but the paper came away cleanly, without disintegrating. _Twelve, more likely._ Given the last heavy rain had been just before 16:00, and lasted less than an hour . . . _Let the labs sort it out. Who are you?_

Three brief lines, starting with a company name, rather than an individual. Connections sparked. _'Attorneys at Law.' 926541 was retrieved from the New York Supreme Court._

No contact information on either side. _That good? Or that poor?_ No way of knowing until analysists dug into the firm's financials.

The last line was a collection of raised dots that took him a moment to place. _Braille._

Sitwell had gotten a description of the man on whom Captain Rogers had planted the final bug. _Red sunglasses, on an overcast day._

Captain Rogers had been in the alley for six minutes. The next time the bug had pinged, it had been on a blind lawyer in a taxi-cab one block away, who had carried it to the Supreme Court before losing it on the steps. A blind lawyer who had left a business card in the same alley.

 _Someone knows what happened here._

It was the work of a moment to slide the card into the plastic bag, and let the bag take his phone's place in his inside jacket pocket. Coulson _click_ ed off his flashlight as he strode out of the alley. His phone's screen glared into the dim yellow of the street.

He kept his eyes up as he dialed; the line rang once before being picked up.

 _"Go."_

"Send a car to my coordinates. And get me everything on the law firm Nelson & Murdock. Starting with an address."

* * *

 _Swish-swish-swish-swish-swish…._

The odd susurration pulled Matt from the doze he'd been unable to deepen into full sleep for the last three hours. _Cloth against cloth._ Pant legs, brushing. Or arms against torso. _Movement, but no footfalls?_

He twisted against couch cushions, shifting to his back and unmuffling the ear that had been pressed against his pillow. Closing his eyes shouldn't help him concentrate after all these years, but instinct ran deeper than logic.

 _Crrr. Crrr. Rrrkkk. Crrr._

 _There._ Nothing so obvious as a full-out creak, but definite sounds of the building stairs reacting to weight applied and removed. Quickly enough that, even despite the absence of footfalls, the climber couldn't be taking particular care for silence. _Which takes a particular set of skills._

He was across the living room and pulling open the door to his bedroom even as he calculated the time remaining before the man – _cologne, Old Spice, and stain remover from the dry cleaner for his suit, polyester blend –_ reached his door.

Steve bolted upright in the bed, surprise painted across his features by the _shhhh_ of blankets and _sliiiiiide_ of the room's pocket door along its tracks. "What- "

"Someone's coming," Matt interrupted. "C'mon."

"Who?" But Steve was moving anyway, the sound of his feet following Matt back out the living room and then right, around the old stairs leading to the loft.

Matt ran one hand quickly along the wooden slats paneling the wall opposite the windows, deep in the alcove across from his living room. "No one good." _Click._ "Here."

Steve stilled, head tilting in an eerily familiar way just as Matt caught the shriek of rusted hinges. _Two floors down, and rising – and Steve heard him._ Which meant the other man's hearing was enhanced – not on the level of Matt's, but significantly beyond the upper limits of what could be called normal.

It was the work of a minute to pull the two doors outward once the hidden latch was disengaged. "There should be enough space."

Steve's balk sounded first in his stuttering footsteps. "Wait, what if you need-"

"There's only one man," Matt broke the flow of words, turning to his houseguest. "That means they don't know anything. Otherwise they'd send another team, bigger this time." That got him a reluctant nod, but Matt didn't wait for Steve to voice his agreement. "This is a fishing expedition, and I don't intend to let him catch either of us."

 _Creak_ ing wood betrayed each shift in weight as the other man climbed into the small space, sitting gingerly on the wooden chest when Matt motioned at it. "What are you going to do?"

Matt slid one door shut. "Show him that there's nothing to see." The second door closed with a small click, even as the stranger stepped onto Matt's floor. "Try not to move," he murmured at the closed doors.

A faint series of _tap_ s replied. _\- -.-_

 _Ok._

He'd barely made it back to the couch when the steps ground to a halt outside his door.

 _Knock, knock, knock._

A firm sound, but lightyears away from the authoritative pounding of a police officer.

 _Well, it is early. What do you do when I ignore you?_ Matt shifted against the couch, leather rubbing leather just enough to produce a _creak_ made loud by the relative silence of the early hour.

 _Knock, knock, KNOCK._

Well, then. "Just a minute!" Matt called, blurring the words with sleep. He didn't trouble to muffle himself as he sat up and made his way to the door. The chain lock was flimsy and ridiculous, but he didn't make any bones about sliding it in place before inching open the door. "Who is it?"

The man in the hallway stood an inch or so shorter than Matt, but carried about the same weight. _More muscle than fat, probably._ There were layers _rubbing_ against one another with each expansion and compression of his ribs – more than just undershirt against collared shirt. The sound described a bulking around his chest that didn't fit the lines of his frame. _Bullet-proof vest?_ Receding hairline, but unconcerned about it, given he lacked any of the chemical tracers in the air that would signify topical treatments like Rogaine or pills for regrowth. Early fifties, from the reduced cartilage cracking in his knees, but still in good physical condition from his heartrate and breath sounds after the speed at which he'd mounted the stairs.

"Mr. Murdock. I'm sorry to bother you so early."

Mild baritone, no sign of the elevation in his heartrate from ascending to the fifth floor at a near-run.

Matt lifted his brows, and added exhaustion to his tone. "What can I do for you, Mr. …?"

"Agent Coulson. Of the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement, and Logistics Division."

 _Bingo._ But not what he'd been expecting to hear. Matt let confusion crease his forehead, rubbing at one sightless eye. "And what does SHIELD want at-" He felt the dial on one wrist. "- 5:20 in the morning, Agent Coulson?"

A pause. The man smiled briefly, even though he thought Matt couldn't see it. "May I come in?"

"That depends," Matt leant against the inside of his door. _He could force it in if he wanted._

"On?"

He kept his voice light, pleasant. "Whether or not you have a warrant."

"If I don't?" Amusement threaded each word, so faint as to be almost nonexistent, but there nonetheless.

"My office's hours are nine to five. Not five to nine."

"I'm aware." Still that hint of humor. Paper _rustled_ in the short space between them, and poked through the two inches between door and jamb. "The warrant."

Matt's hands stayed where they'd landed; one on the door and the other on the wall, bracketing the gap through which Agent Coulson was speaking.

"It's in Braille."

That earned Agent Coulson a blink. _Well, I doubt he got his job by being sloppy._ Matt fumbled one hand up until questing fingers met thin sheets dotted in familiar patterns. "I'm sure you understand that I'll need a minute to review this."

"I'll wait."

Matt closed the door, and took the time to run his fingers over each and every line of the document. Then he did so again, and made a decision. When he opened the door again, he had his cell phone in one hand.

The heels of Agent Coulson's shoes _rubbed_ against old floorboards as he turned. "I trust everything is in order?"

"Not exactly. Would you mind stepping back a moment?" Matt raised his phone.

"Is there a problem?"

"I'm blind, Agent Coulson." Matt gave him a humorless smile. "I would like to take a picture of you to send to my partner in order to verify your identity, should it become necessary. Given the irregularities in the warrant. I'm sure you understand."

"I'm not aware of any irregularities."

 _That's not a no._

The phone _click_ ed as Matt snapped several photographs in rapid succession, tilting the angle of the device minutely with each image captured. _One of them will be good enough._ "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."

"The Fourth Amendment," Agent Coulson answered. No trace of amusement now.

"Yes. Which makes me wonder what, exactly, you're looking for here. Given that this is a search warrant with no listed _persons or things to be seized_. Which also raises certain probable cause issues, in my mind."

"The paperwork is a courtesy, Mr. Murdock." _There_ was the steel he'd expect of a federal agent. The heartrate was still steady.

"How so?" he challenged.

Clothing shifted as Agent Coulson shrugged. "Exigent circumstances."

"Which only apply when an officer doesn't have the time to get a warrant." Matt raised the papers in his opposite hand. "Try again."

"I'm not looking to arrest anyone."

 _But he doesn't say he's not looking to search anywhere._ "Then why are you here?"

"I'm looking for someone. He's in trouble. And I think you ran into him yesterday. I just want to talk."

 _Not good enough._ "As I told you earlier, my office's hours are nine to five. I'm sure I don't need to tell you the address." He only managed to close the door an inch before the agent's hand darted out, palm impacting wood with a dull _smack_.

"The papers are a courtesy, Mr. Murdock, because I could put anything in there and get a judge's signature. But I'm trying to keep a man's name off them, because he's not a criminal."

 _That_ rang with a sincerity that had been absent from the edited truths Agent Coulson had been feeding him so far. _He's invested. Why?_ "And what name would that be?"

Bone _click_ ed against bone as Agent Coulson gritted his teeth. Beyond the minute flex of muscle in his cheeks, however, his face could have been carved from stone. "Captain Steven Grant Rogers."

Across the apartment, the heartrate shielded by wood paneling kicked higher, the faintest hint of adrenaline staining the air.

Pausing would be a concession. Letting the agent into the apartment would be a bigger one. But. _He's here because he knows something; something that led him to me. And I need to know what._ Matt stepped back from the threshold, swinging the door wider.

"You know him." Agent Coulson's steps were audible now, and as blandly unremarkable as everything else about the man.

Matt headed for his kitchen. _It's pretty much time to get up anyway; so coffee._ Might as well give Agent Coulson some semblance of authenticity in this dance. "I'm not in the habit of disclosing client's names when there's no action pending, Agent Coulson."

"So he's a client." Despite the words, there was no accompanying hint of triumph in the Agent's bearing for a point won.

"I'm not confirming or denying that," Matt replied levelly, feeling his way through pouring coffee grounds into a filter. He didn't quite say _"You know what they say about assumptions,"_ but did his best to imply it. "I let you in here because you seem to be looking out for someone's interests, despite the misguided way you're going about it."

Agent Coulson's breath didn't change. "I appreciate that it isn't the most hospitable hour-"

"You can put anything on this warrant and get a judge to sign off on it?" Matt lifted the papers again, before dropping them beside the coffee machine. A _click_ started the low _hmmm_ of the machine's motor. "The probable cause requirement isn't something that can be rubber-stamped into validity, Agent."

Soft _click_ s accompanied the other man's few steps into the kitchen, describing a small arc as he turned. _His line of sight is right into the open bedroom._ The only thing there was a rumpled bed.

"I need to know if you've seen him."

"I haven't _seen_ anyone since 1996." Correcting people's unconscious language choices had never been worth it, after he'd finally reached acceptance of what had happened to him. But how Agent Coulson reacted could be telling.

"I heard. It was brave, pushing that man out of the way."

Matt laughed, to cover the chill in his stomach. _He heard. It's 5:30 in the morning, only sixteen hours since I even met Steve, and Agent Coulson has heard my life story._ Now the depth of the resources available to independently follow eighteen bugs made sense. "It was stupid." He tilted his head, angling his ear to get a better assessment of Coulson's features. "Take your pick, I suppose."

Coulson's steps circled the living space, alongside the windows. "Did they ever find out what chemicals exactly were in those containers?"

"Typ A MS 04G4XXXX. Hazardous Materials." Matt gave a brief smile. The scent of coffee had started to fill the space, covering over the steady odor of adrenaline-spiked readiness emanating from Steve's hiding place and Matt's own body. "It was almost the last thing I ever saw. Beyond that? OsCorp's investigation stopped when they determined the cause of the accident and the extent of the damages."

"Mmm." The vibration illuminated carefully bland features for a brief moment. "The settlement wasn't enough to live on. That's why your father kept fighting."

Matt took a breath. "Disturbing as this conversation is, Agent, I can't imagine that you came here to insinuate that you've induced violation of the settlement agreement's confidentiality clause. If you could get to the point, I'd appreciate it."

"Alright." More _click_ s, his shoes mapping his route through the living space and past Matt's open bedroom door. "Today, you were picked up in a cab on the corner of 47th and 11th at approximately 12:57 PM. It took you to the New York Supreme Court on Center Street. But just before that cab ride, you encountered a man, taller than you are. Moving quickly, in all likelihood. Brooklyn accent, if he spoke. Probably in an alley, next to a bakery."

Even a fresh stream of coffee _gurgling_ into the pot wasn't enough to cover the scent of adrenaline that strengthened with every word. Knowing it was coming wasn't enough to subvert the heightened stress response. "And how do you go from my allegedly being in a taxi nearby, to being in an alley, Agent Coulson?"

Matt swept his fingers along his countertop until he impacted one wire foot connected to his drying rack. Patting carefully along the dishes stacked inside, he located the smooth ceramic of his largest mug.

"Allegedly. I like that." One of the man's hands disappeared into his jacket, and re-emerged with a _crinkl_ ing plastic bag. "One of your business cards was in that alley, Mr. Murdock. Actually, and not allegedly."

 _That_ was what he'd missed. _I must have dropped it._ He hadn't even remembered that he'd tried to offer Steve a card.

It was the ease of long practice that allowed him to find the pot, bring the mug to its lip, and pour without scalding himself. "I'm one of two partners comprising a small firm, Agent. I've given away hundreds of business cards. I can't account for where they end up." Matt threw in a shrug as he replaced the pot. Coffee resumed its steady _drip-drip_. "If I didn't disseminate my card, I'd be out of business."

"You're close to it, from what I hear." Agent Coulson wandered a little further, accompanied by the brush of skin over wood paneling. If Matt hadn't been blind, he'd be out of sight anyway in the alcove. "And your card doesn't carry any contact information. Unusual business strategy, if prospective clients can't find you."

"People know who we are."

"I'm only interested in one person." Coulson re-emerged from the alcove at the edge of the kitchen space, crossing over to Matt's table.

"Why are you looking for him?"

"That's classified."

 _Thought so._ Well; only one thing for it, then. "I'm afraid I can't help you, Agent Coulson."

"I think that you can."

"Perhaps I didn't make myself clear." Matt blew a breath over the steaming liquid in his mug, listening to the ripples change as he adjusted the angle of air. "Either I don't know who you're talking about, in which case I can't help you; or I am claiming attorney-client privilege, in which case I _really_ can't help you. For your purposes, the end result is the same."

"Not quite."

"How so?"

"Well, in one instance, I say goodbye, and we probably don't see each other again. In the other, we go to SHIELD headquarters, and this discussion lasts quite a bit longer."

 _Yeah, I really don't think so._ "Frank Armani and Francis Belge."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"You're the one with the resources of a government agency, Agent Coulson. Have someone look it up. In the meantime, I need to get ready for work, so I'm going to have to ask you to leave."

"You might want to contemplate the consequences of obstruction of justice."

"You might want to try that threat on someone who isn't a lawyer." Matt took a sip of his coffee, then resettled his mug against worn Formica with a _clink_. "You've as good as told me this isn't a criminal investigation. Outside of that circumstance, simply trying to find someone doesn't fall under any federal or state statute of which I'm aware. Therefore, in seeking this individual you're not attempting to implement any form of justice with which I'm familiar. So what, exactly, am I obstructing?"

"That's classified."

"In that case, the next time you come back, have your paperwork in proper order." Grabbing his coffee, he rounded the peninsula that divided the kitchen from the rest of the living space, passing close enough to Agent Coulson that his trajectory forced the other man to shift out of the way. "I trust you can see yourself out."

The Agent's steps marched toward the door. Gears grated along one another as he turned the knob, and paused. "I hope I didn't chase away your company."

Matt hid his smile in his coffee mug, and took a few moments to wipe all hints of it from his voice. He didn't bother turning around. "I'm sorry?"

"Your bed's been slept in, but there's a pillow and blanket on the couch."

Crossing to his bedroom, Matt raised his voice to compensate for the increased distance. "Not that my medical history is any of your business, Agent, but I have Non-24. It's a sleep disorder from circadian rhythm disruption. A side effect of being blind. Last night wasn't one of my better ones."

Low enough that Matt knew he wasn't intended to hear, Agent Coulson muttered, _"I wouldn't say that."_ His next breath was deeper, and Matt loosened his focus on his hearing in time for the Agent's next words to be loud but not overwhelming. "I'll be seeing you, Mr. Murdock."

"Why? One illegal and fruitless search not enough for you?"

The only response he received was the slide of metal as the latch moved against the strike plate and _click_ ed into place.

Seconds later came the _creak_ of old wood as Steve shifted behind the false wall.

"Give it a few minutes," Matt murmured.

The _creak_ s subsided.

Quick steps brought him to the thin door leading out to the hallway. Matt angled his head again, left ear listening as Agent Coulson re-entered the stairwell. _Swish-swish-swish-swish_ , with the accompanying _pat-pat-pat-pat_ of the balls of his feet descending each step. His right ear followed Steve's heartbeat – steady and alert.

Then an electronic _bzzzzz._

 _"Go."_

 _"There's some footage here that you're going to want to see_. _Did you track down Murdock?"_ Male, younger than Agent Coulson; the older man must have good hearing, though, because the phone's volume was lower than average.

Halfway down to the third floor, the Agent on his stairs huffed. _"It's definitely him; red glasses, gray suit hung up for the cleaners. He as good as told me that Captain Rogers is a client of his firm, and then stonewalled for another ten minutes before kicking me out."_

A smirk curved Matt's lips.

 _"You let him kick you out?"_

 _"Well, it seems that_ magna cum laude _at Columbia Law actually means something."_

 _"Told you that you should have put Rogers' name on that warrant."_

Enamel _skreek_ ed as Agent Coulson gritted his teeth. _"No."_

 _"Look, I know the man's your hero-"_

The third floor stairwell entry burst open in typical fashion, _slamming_ against flesh – an upraised palm. Agent Coulson's heartrate jumped, but calmed as soon as he saw Mr. Coleman, who was eighty if he was a day.

 _Quick return to baseline,_ Matt mused. Too quick, for the average population. _Biofeedback?_ Another part of his mind registered _hero_ in that odd tone and put it aside for later scrutiny.

" _Excuse me."_ The Agent must have edged around the door on the tiny landing, letting wood come to rest with a _tap_ against the edge of Mr. Coleman's cane, before he resumed his rapid descent down the stairs.

A grunt from Mr. Coleman was more polite than what Matt generally got from the taciturn old man.

The _pat-pat_ of footfalls increased, but Agent Coulson didn't say another word until the door exiting onto the street separated him from Mr. Coleman's interminably slow progress down the stairs. _"Where are we on surveillance of Nelson & Murdock for the last twenty-four hours?"_

 _Oh, hell._ Matt's hand flexed against the door, fingertips pressing white as he reviewed the last day. Even hopping rooftops, dodging cameras was habit. _Should be okay. For now._

 _"The techs are reviewing it. What about going forward?"_

" _I want eyes on Murdock's apartment and office. Set up full surveillance on everyone at the firm."_

 _Sonuva-_ Foggy was going to be _thrilled_ about this.

 _"Have a team assembled and briefed to head out by 0700. I should be done debriefing by then."_

Agent Couson didn't wait for affirmation from the other end of the line; the device _bleep_ ed, and a slightly smoother _rsss_ of one starched cuff against the lining of his jacket told Matt the man had tucked his phone away.

One ear on the sound of rapidly-retreating feet, Matt strode to the hidden compartment, tripping the latch and flinging both doors wide. "Come on. We don't have a lot of time."

* * *

 _Eighteen hours, fifty-five minutes. And counting._ Fury clasped both hands behind his back, straightening his shoulders beneath black leather. His nod cued up a screen, familiar figures looming from four video feeds.

"Nineteen hours, Director." _Councilman Malick. Front and center; as expected._

First contact was the only acceptable moment to allow his head to rotate, surveying the Council. At parade rest, Councilman Dù was out of sight to Fury's left; Hawley and Volkov were arrayed alongside Malick to the right. _Dù_ _isn't likely to weigh in. Volkov notified SHIELD through back channels when the Russian oil team found the Valkyrie; leverage and salvage rights not worth the mess?_

Which left him with only half the Council grinding proverbial axes. _Better than the alternative._ Fury kept his voice smooth. "I'm aware of how long he's been missing, Councilman."

"And what are you doing to resolve the situation?" Each word emerged clipped and stern. Malick was American, but Fury had yet to pinpoint the geography that had slightly rounded his fellow countryman's vowels.

"The Council's interest in our work has always been about results, not procedure." Fury didn't have to adjust his intonation to make his statement a question; the Council would interpret it as one regardless.

A different figure spoke, no warmer for being female, and distinctly British. "When the results are inadequate, attention must turn to the procedure giving rise to those inadequacies."

 _Really?_ He paused a moment, the slightest softening in his face lending to a contrite mien. "Inadequate is a stretch, Councilwoman."

"I wouldn't say so." A straight fall of chin-length hair added to the shadow concealing her face.

"You should be more than aware of the procedure that led to the current situation." Fury didn't let his gaze waver; taking in what he could of her obscured features. "The Council dictated the scenario down to the finest detail. My people had almost no input at all in structuring the environment in which Captain Rogers woke."

"That was necessary." Councilman Volkov's slanted vowels rang of Moscow.

"I fail to see how."

Volkov folded his hands; after a breath, Hawley picked up the thread in an accent of cut-glass. "His mental status was of some concern. There never were accurate reports as to the effect the serum had on his mental acuity, beyond postulation about an eidetic memory. Given that his injuries from the crash were unknown, followed by an extended period of time in suspended animation, it was better to be sure than to have an unstable super-soldier on the loose."

"Yes. We certainly wouldn't want another Harlem Incident." His hands flexed behind his back; Fury loosened his fingers, refusing to give in to a tension that would spread to his shoulders and from there, betray him to the Council's eyes.

Malick's silhouette straightened. "Bruce Banner is a rogue scientist, Director."

"I beg to differ." Fury's ribs expanded in a silent sigh. _Fight that battle later._ "So the room, the radio, the woman – it was all a test."

A slight shifting of weight brought the still edge of Councilman Dù's outline into sight; a worthless venture. _The man might as well be carved of stone._

"Of course it was," Malick scoffed. "Do you know how much time it took to confirm a Dodgers game that he actually attended, and then find an authentic audio recording of it?"

"And why wasn't I informed beforehand?" A silent breath skimmed off the surface of his burgeoning rage. _Don't give them the victory of seeing your anger._

He never had been very good at that.

"Are you familiar with the theory behind double-blind studies, Director?" Councilwoman Hawley had probably perfected the art of sounding unapologetic when Fury was worried about junior prom. "We couldn't have any potential bias in reporting the outcome of the experiment."

Outrage bubbled in his gut, spilling out into the room in the clipped speed of each sentence. Stitching pulled against leather as his fingers fisted tightly within his gloves. "That's all that was to you? An experiment?"

"Captain America _is_ an experiment, Director." Malick shifted back in his seat, supremely unconcerned. "One that dozens of men, many of them geniuses, have failed to duplicate since Abraham Erskine's death in 1942. He holds the answers; if not in his mind, then in his body."

 _Cold bastard._ "You're talking about a living, breathing, human being." _And a fellow American._

The old man tapped his fingers on a thin stack of papers mostly cut off by the narrow frame of the video's window. "We're talking about a man who signed an agreement to cooperate with any and all testing including and subsequent to Project Rebirth."

"That was seventy years ago!" Fury burst out.

"Not for him."

"Director," Councilwoman Hawley cut in. "It is undisputed that the results of the original Project Rebirth have never been successfully replicated. Captain Rogers' recovery is an opportunity not only to solve that puzzle, but to open other avenues of research."

 _She can't be serious._ Fury could feel his body shifting out of parade rest and into full attention. "Councilwoman, everyone who was part of the original Project Rebirth is dead, with the exception of Captain Rogers – and he had no role in the development of the serum. Howard Stark funded a side project in recreating the serum from 1947 until his death in 1991. There were no successes," Fury said flatly. The failures had been many, alarming, and mostly fatal – thankfully. "If anyone had a chance at success, it would have been him." _And even if someone does finally succeed in re-creating Erskine's serum, what exactly do you plan to do with it?_

The World Security Council was an international effort. Doubtless if they succeeded, each member would insist on an equal share for their own country. _A Cold War, but instead of nukes, with super-soldiers?_ What would even be the point?

A chill raised the hair on the back of his neck. _Unless you need to fight a threat that's more than human._

 _Like New Mexico._

Distracted by the possibilities, he almost missed Councilwoman Hawley's retort.

"Howard Stark's genius lay in engineering, not the life sciences. With samples from Captain Rogers, reverse bio-engineering of the serum would be possible."

 _Which means she has a team of scientists on standby, with one colossal idiot at the forefront who told her he could do it._ The question was, out of the extremely limited number of people with adequate qualifications, _who_. Pain blossomed behind Fury's left ear, slivers of discomfort radiating up and around to his temple and bespeaking an incipient headache. He'd have to put someone on this. _Agent Weaver, I think._

"Combined with other scientists' research in the field, there should be current applications that would allow for threat neutralization and making certain assets viable."

 _Bruce Banner, obviously; but 'making certain assets viable'?_

Realization was a hit to his solar plexus, punching his breath out in a shocked exhale. _They want to fix –_

"The Abomination?" Fury's teeth clamped down on a curse, sparking copper pain at the tip of his tongue. Blonsky was a sociopath even before undergoing the first injections of the knock-off serum Ross had dug up. Add to that the havoc wrought on his body by the introduction of Banner's blood to his system, and Harlem had seen the result. _And now they want to play with his physiology again?_ "Is that even possible?"

"Captain Blonsky is a decorated war hero, Director." Ice frosted each word. Under the cover of shadow, Hawley was likely glaring at him – inasmuch as she ever descended to such blatant displays.

 _No, he's a weapon of mass destruction. And if you think you can point and aim him without recoil strong enough to knock the United Nations on its ass, there's going to be hell to pay._ The Abomination was one man he had no qualms leaving to General Ross's not-so-tender mercies. _But if that's the way they want to play it…_ Standing straighter, Fury searched the darkness to meet her gaze. "With all due respect, Councilwoman, so is Captain Rogers."

"Yes." The satisfaction in her tone put him on his guard, too late. "And from what we know of his character, I believe he would agree to help a fellow soldier."

Fury didn't bother to suppress the frown pulling at his face. _I'm not sure you know his character as well as you think you do._ But more to the point – "Would you even allow him the choice?"

"That is irrelevant until he has been recovered." Slim shoulders rose and fell in an elegant shrug.

 _Like a stray dog._ Or, now that the decision as to whether to put Captain Rogers' name on an arrest warrant had been taken out of Coulson's hands . . . _Like a criminal._ Bile soured over his tongue. _I wish I could say I hadn't seen it coming._

Malick slid in without a pause. "Which brings us back to SHIELD's response to his escape. Director?"

Fury swallowed down the foul taste in his mouth, finding each word slowly. _Sometimes, this job . . ._ "We're on his trail, Councilman. Teams are in the field as we speak."

* * *

Steve sped his stride to keep up with Miss Page, who wasn't slowed by her heels in the slightest. Each shoe _tapped_ against the diamond-plate of the metal stairs, echoing through the stairwell in a rapid staccato of sound. The railing had been removed from the next half-flight, and Steve moved to the outside as she veered closer to the wall.

A glance down showed just enough of a gap to allow someone to fall straight through to the basement.

 _That's not safe._

And the edges where rails had once connected were very cleanly sliced.

But he didn't say anything until he saw the door leading to the sixth floor of the building set off its hinges against the wall just inside the hallway, beside a series of ragged holes the size of a sledgehammer that punched through plaster and lathe. Light glowed faintly through the paper that the inhabitant residing on the other side of the wall had pasted over the openings.

"What happened?" Steve nodded at the damage.

Miss Page barely glanced at it, readjusting the hang of her purse on her shoulder and stepping around the large pile of debris that had been swept neatly to one side. "The landlord's repairmen." Sarcasm fairly dripped from the last word.

A few sparse bulbs lit the corridor – the opaque white glass over the filament was different, the light more white than golden, but the plastered walls were familiar. And scarred by a series of deep scratches, waist-high, that dragged the entire length of the hall. At least one light socket had chunks of broken glass sticking out from a busted bulb that couldn't be removed. "I don't think much of their work."

Miss Page snorted. "No one does." Somehow she made stepping over a series of heavy metal bars crossing the length of the corridor look easy, even in a pencil skirt and high heels. "The building's rent-controlled. But the landlord wants to sell."

Two solid strides took Steve over the obstacle course someone had created on the floor, even as his brow rose.

"He hired a law firm to try to evict his tenants. When that didn't work, he hired some repairmen." One sweeping arm encompassed the hall's expanse – dim lighting, dangerous footing, dangling wires, and damaged walls. "They went through and started destroying parts of the building, turning off the water and electricity. Then they said they couldn't finish the work because the area was too dangerous, and left it like that. The landlord thought that would get some people to 'voluntarily' take his offered payout and break up the resistance so he could convince the rest to leave."

Anger pressed his lips thin; Steve took in the signs of aggressive cleaning around heavier items that would be a struggle to dispose of, and felt his outrage start to dissipate. He followed Miss Page around some wires and shiny tubing hanging from a careless hole in the ceiling. "Has it worked?"

"Not so far." There was definitely a smile in her voice.

A small huff of laughter pushed free. "Sound like my type of people."

She halted before a paint-marked door boasting the number _62_ , and eyed him sideways. "How good are you at plastering?"

Steve felt one side of his mouth curl up. "Better than fixing electricity, by a long shot."

"That, at least, is not a problem anymore." One slender hand lifted, rapping at the wood with more strength than some might have given her credit for.

 _Knock, KNOCK._

"Are you sure it's all right to be here this early?" Tugging the cap off his head, he ran fingers over his hair, doing his best to neaten his appearance.

The window at the end of the hall had only the faintest light beaming through dirty and mottled glass. They'd left Murdock's apartment as the sun had edged over the horizon; even though the route they'd been forced to take had more than doubled what should have been a ten-minute walk across one long block and down from 54th to 48th, the hallway was still dim.

When he glanced over, a small smile had curved Miss Page's lips. "It's fine. Mrs. Cardenas is up at six every day." A sudden frown creased her forehead. "How's your Spanish?"

 _Click._ The battered green door swung open, outlining a woman with a kind face that hinted at more than a few hard years. Her graying hair was pulled into a bun, and Steve almost missed the glasses on her nose, which looked like two thin lenses and a collection of thin wires. More thin metal, glinting gold, looped from each earlobe; a cross hung at her throat. "Hola, Señorita Karen. Como estas?"

Steve blinked.

Miss Page smiled wider. "Hola, Señora Cardenas. Estoy bien, gracias. Y tu?"

A livid red line trailed across the old woman's face from the left side of her forehead toward her temple. _Given the thickness and color. . ._ Steve stifled a frown.

"Tan bien como se podría esperar," she sighed. "Oh! Donde esta mis modales? Entra, entra!" One hand beckoned them in as she stepped aside.

 _That seems clear enough._ Before he'd grasped the basics of French, there had been a lot of sign language between himself and Dernier; the Commandos wouldn't have been able to get by on the front without learning how to figure out what people meant even when each side couldn't understand what the other was saying.

Reaching for the door, Steve propped it with one hand, gesturing with the other for Miss Page to proceed him.

"Oh! Un caballero!" Mrs. Cardenas's voice was warm, and when he glanced up, the older woman was looking at him fondly.

Heat suffused his cheeks; Steve knew _that_ tone. "I'm sorry, ma'am," he managed, looking her in the eye. "I don't know Spanish."

The door was a bit of a struggle to close; he frowned down at deeply scratched arcs on the battered floor. At his back, the women exchanged a few words in that sibilant language. A glance up at the hinge confirmed: the door was sagging in the jamb, the uppermost metal hinge plates having pulled away from the wood. A lift and a push solved the problem of closing the door. _But I wouldn't call it secure._

And given the state of the hallway and street outside, _secure_ was needed in this part of town.

Turning back into the room, Steve sucked in a surprised breath. _Don't stare._ Not so easy, when he'd seen houses hit by bombs that were in better shape. _It looks like it was nice, once. What happened?_

The 'repairmen,' most likely.

"Steve, this is Mrs. Cardenas," Miss Page patted his arm, redirecting his gaze from a hole in the wall roughly the size of a person and the chunks of plaster and splintered wood piled in front of it. "Mrs. Cardenas, this is Steve."

Mrs. Cardenas reached out a hand; her skin was papery and cool. Naturally, or due to the papered-over set of windows in the far wall, Steve couldn't tell. "May I name you Esteban?"

"That's 'Steven' in Spanish," Miss Page whispered.

"How do I say 'Yes, thank you'?" Steve asked. He kept his eyes on Mrs. Cardenas with the force of habit Jones had beaten into all of them over the months. _You're not talking to the translator. You're talking to the person in front of you._

" _Sí_ is _yes_ ," Miss Page answered. " _Gracías_ is _thank you_. But Mrs. Cardenas understands English very well."

"My speak is only okay," the older woman shrugged, stepping over to a low white couch with a clear, slick sheen. It _squeak_ ed faintly with her weight.

"You speak very well," Miss Page corrected, settling in a wooden chair whose back and seat were familiar woven cane webbing. It _creak_ ed, betraying more years than Steve would have thought based on the modern-looking curve of the arms.

"Sit, por favor," Mrs. Cardenas patted the couch.

Steve lowered himself slowly, biting the inside of one cheek. "I wouldn't be rude to a lady in her own home," he finally said. "I can learn well enough. It might take a little while, but that's no excuse not to try." Spanish was one of the romance languages, if he was remembering right; already some of the flow and sound of the words were reminiscent of Italian. "Sí, gracías."

"Not bad," Miss Page smiled. "Though hopefully you won't be here long enough to become fluent."

 _What?_ "I thought this was just for a few hours," Steve admitted. The coating under his hand was cool, and not as slippery as he'd thought it would be. _Protecting the cloth?_ The covered cushions were markedly whiter than the uncovered couch arm, which was a shade yellower and smudged with brown dust. _From the wall? Hasn't been there long._

"Oh," Miss Page shook her head, blond ponytail swinging. "No – Matt thinks you should stay here for awhile, lay low. No one will think to look for you here."

 _If they come looking for me, I'll have put Mrs. Cardenas in danger too._ Murdock was one thing; the man moved like he could take care of himself, blind or no. But Mrs. Cardenas, at her age and size, against the men who'd come after him – who made even his serum-enhanced body look short and slight – there was no question as to the outcome.

"The people looking for me…" Steve shook his head, remembering the lighting-arc _bzzz_ and sharp, searing pain of the batons striking at him. "I don't know who they are. But I know they're dangerous. Trained." _SHIELD._ An agency under one of the departments within the executive branch of the US Government, according to what little Murdock knew. _Department of Homeland Security._ Something else he needed to look up. "They could be government."

"Eres un criminal?"

 _That_ he could figure out. "No," Steve blurted. Honesty compelled his next words. "At least, I don't think so."

He caught the tail end of a speaking look that passed between the two women, but couldn't decipher it.

"Señorita Karen, she say, you have nowhere to sleep. Yes?"

"Yes, but-"

A flurry of Spanish cut him off, leaving him glancing helplessly at Miss Page for clarity. When the flow of words ended with a satisfied _hmph!_ that reminded him of Mrs. Barnes, Miss Page said mildly, "She'd like you to stay here."

Steve closed his eyes briefly. "If they find me, I don't know what they'll do to anyone standing nearby."

Thin fingers enfolded his own. "Esteban."

Steve met her gaze. Mrs. Cardenas's words were an unfamiliar jumble of sound, but he kept his eyes on her face as Miss Page began to speak.

"She says that this is Hell's Kitchen, and there is danger everywhere. There are addicts on the street outside who have broken into the building and gone door-to-door with knives, looking for things to steal. She says what more might the people hunting you do than the men who walk the street outside at night. You're not bringing more danger to her door than what's already there." Miss Page's voice softened. "She says, you must be a good man, if evil people want so badly to stop you."

 _Whatever happens tomorrow, you must promise me one thing. That you will stay who you are. Not a perfect soldier, but a good man._ "I don't know that they are evil," Steve murmured, memories distancing his gaze from eyes that held a familiar wisdom. "I don't know…" _Anything; not anymore._

Which meant that as soon as he was secure, gathering information was first priority. _SHIELD. Not HYDRA. America. Not Europe._ He could almost wrap his mind around it. _Except._

"Yo sé." Steel rang through her voice, but as her fingers tightened on his, her face softened. "Esteban. Los hombres malos no te preocupes acerca de otras personas, y los hombres buenos no amenazan a los espectadores."

He looked away, but was caught by another set of eyes. Miss Page could stare down Colonel Phillips. "She's made her choice."

 _Know when you're beat._ Not that that had ever stopped him in any fight, but this was a different kind of battle – one he was ill-equipped to win. "For now," he temporized.

"Bien!" Mrs. Cardenas patted his hand, and pushed to her feet. "Ahora, comemos. Un momento." She moved around the couch, avoiding the pile of rubble at the base of the wall with the ease of familiarity, and disappearing into the next room.

"I was hoping you might stay," Miss Page murmured. Steve marked the sudden release of tension in her shoulders, not apparent until it was absent.

"What's wrong?" He matched her volume, leaning forward.

Her knuckles were flushing from white to pink where her fingers interlocked in her lap. "With all the damage that the repairmen did, Mrs. Cardenas needs someone to help fix this place. She doesn't have a lot of money to pay for materials and someone to do it. And -"

"And?" he prompted.

"It's not very safe here. People have been jumped on the street right outside by gangs-"

 _Oh._ "People?" Steve asked quietly. "Or you?"

"I wasn't the only one." Miss Page huffed a sigh, unclasping her hands to pat briefly at her ponytail. "But Mrs. Cardenas doesn't always feel safe. And she's made her landlord angry, by going to lawyers and encouraging the rest of the tenants to stick together and fight against being forced out."

Concern wrinkled the skin on Steve's forehead. "No one would harm her, surely?"

 _Then again._ Apparently 2012 America was a place where a company owner would arrange the murder of one of his own employees to frame a secretary who found out he was breaking the law.

"Some people would hurt anyone if it got them something they wanted," was her bitter response. The smile she found was softer than her tone, by a little. "She shouldn't be alone."

"I'll do what I can." He didn't want to promise. _Lord, don't let my presence here endanger anyone._

But that seemed to be enough for Miss Page. "That's all I can ask."

"Desayuno!" came Mrs. Cardenas's voice from the other room. "Señorita Karen, Esteban!"

Steve twisted to see her emerge from what must be the kitchen, plates on each arm, and jumped to his feet. "Let me," he held out his hands as he approached, and his jaw almost dropped at their weight. A bright mix of colorful foods were arranged on each plate; the smell that wafted up earned an answering gurgle from his stomach.

Heat flooded his face at Mrs. Cardenas's smile. "To table," and she waved him back toward the couch.

"That's my cue." The chair creaked as Miss Page stood, making her way over to them. "I have to get to the office. I have a feeling it's going to be a rough day."

"Muy importante, you eat," Mrs. Cardenas said firmly. She pressed a large container into Miss Page's hands.

Steve checked the plates in his own hands against the size of the dish Miss Page was now balancing, and blinked. _Where did that come from?_

"For you, and Señor Matt, and Señor Foggy." Mrs. Cardenas bent her head forward, a small conspiracy in her grin. "He need."

Genuine humor swept the last traces of bitterness from Miss Page's face face in a sweet smile. "I think you might be right."

* * *

"What the hell is this!"

Not a single one of the four black suits rifling through various files, drawers, and boxes looked up.

 _Hell with this._ Foggy dug for his phone, dumping his briefcase and two file jackets on a rickety swivel chair. One of the suits took a few steps towards the files he'd carried in, but smoothly redirected when Foggy planted himself squarely in front of the chair. _Oh, there is no way in hell. Wait a minute – is he making himself coffee?_

Their well-used Keurig gave a distinctive _gurgle_.

 _That sonuva-_

Another suit – this one a woman – slipped a few pieces of paper out of a file on Karen's desk, and started snapping pictures. _That is IT._ Anger was ulcerative, burning deep in his gut.

Phone finally freed from his inner jacket pocket, Foggy swiped through its security lock and hit speed-dial. _Come on, Brett, pick up your damn phone, it's only –_ Foggy twisted his wrist. _Seven twenty-four. You're definitely up._

"You don't want to do that."

Shock slammed his body forward by a full step. Jerking around, he came nearly nose-to-nose with a balding older man who wasn't hiding his smirk as well as he thought. "Do what? Call the cops?" Foggy snapped, throwing words out past the constriction where his heart had jumped into his throat. "I'm thinking that I _do_ , actually."

Three quick movements reduced the still-ringing phone app, pulling up the voice recorder and camera functions as well.

"I'm Agent Coulson, with SHIELD. We're here investigating a security threat." Any amusement Foggy thought he'd seen seconds earlier had disappeared. A sheaf of papers fairly popped into existence between them, extended his way. "We need to appropriate-"

"Tell me. Does that line actually work for you?" Foggy interrupted, camera and voice recorders both active. Meanwhile, his phone continued to ring out. _Really, Brett?_ "Attorney-client privilege and the work-product doctrine protect everything in this office -"

"Here are the warrants."

"Based on what?" Foggy snatched at the papers, hiding the way his stomach sank at the name _Captain Steven Grant Rogers_ on the arrest warrant, and the search warrant's description of all papers and notations pertaining to any contact between Captain Rogers and the office of Nelson  & Murdock.

 _Matt's client._ And, as was becoming depressingly typical, Matt himself was missing in action.

"This." A tablet was lifted, the screen split to show footage from the front and back of the building – two men, entering and leaving a building. _This building. Great._ Timestamped the previous day, afternoon and evening. _Matt and Rogers._ Though neither of their faces were ever visible. Interestingly enough, Matt arrived with his stick and glasses, and left without them, wearing a Yankees ball cap over his hair. Rogers left with the cane and glasses, hood up. _What the hell did they think they were playing at?_

In his hand, Sergeant Brett Mahoney's voicemail message announced itself.

And Agent Coulson was standing there patiently, suit impeccably starched, expression impossibly staid, while his people continued to rifle through their files. _He's the distraction._ The woman had disappeared into Matt's office; one of the men was visible through the window into the conference room.

 _All in then. Mostly._ "I will confirm that Captain Rogers is a client of this firm," Foggy stated baldly. He kept his phone in one hand hanging loose at his side, fingers split around the camera lens to allow a clear view of the room. "As I was saying, attorney-client privilege and the work-product doctrine are in effect and protect all items and information sought by your search warrant. All the things your people have taken thus far have been illegally seized in violation of the Fourth Amendment, and will be ineligible to be admitted to evidence – should there actually be an arrest made. I want your identification, Agent Coulson, and that of every other agent who broke into my office this morning. _Now_."

A bland smile crossed the distance between them, and the badge that flashed his way was hidden too quickly for Foggy to get any good idea of the identification number. _Or a good picture, damn it._ The insignia was distinctive and familiar – a stylized bird, wings outstretched. _SHIELD._ It could be faked, but _someone_ was looking for Rogers. _Why go to the effort of faking a government ID to hunt someone down and choose SHIELD rather than something within the DOJ or FBI?_

Either they were stupid, or legit.

Suit Four emerged from Foggy's own office, hands empty. Foggy tracked him with narrowed eyes as he passed through the main office into the exterior hallway.

"Attorney client privilege doesn't allow you to harbor a fugitive, Mr. Nelson."

"Fugitive?" Foggy shot back, folding his arms, the camera on his phone poking out of his fist. He tried not to angle it too blatantly. "As far as I'm aware, _Agent_ , your organization attempted to detain a lawful citizen following his recovery from an injury while on active duty, with said injury being of an incapacitating nature that precluded him from committing any crimes which would render him subject to an arrest warrant. He has no priors and no criminal history. And he certainly was not in custody – or even attended by any actual medical professionals – when he woke up."

"Under the Patriot Act-"

 _There is no way!_ His voice burst out, loud with sheer incredulity. "SHIELD doesn't fall under the Department of Justice, I don't know who you think you're fooling-"

"- right to monitor all communications, even between attorneys and their clients-"

Incredulity became outright furor. " _Conversations_ , not communications, _while in prisons_ when the clients are _detainees_ , Agent Coulson. This is Hell's Kitchen, not Guantanamo."

He must have held his arm too carefully, or kept his hand too stationary, even as outrage poured from his mouth. Something drew Agent Coulson's eye, and the man stilled, face locked down. "You're recording."

 _Shit._

"You've been punk'd," Foggy said flatly. "The ACLU is going to _love_ this." _Not to mention YouTube._ "Especially the part where one of the agencies of the executive branch of the federal government is trying to threaten law-abiding citizens by distorting the Patriot Act to violate constitutional rights. Even more than usual."

Suit Two headed his way, and Foggy planted his feet. _Big. Great._ The thug had half a foot on him, and a good seventy-five pounds too. "One-party consent recording rule. Want to go for assault?" he asked Suit Two. The glower on the man's face inspired a curl of nervousness that twisted, snakelike, through his belly. True to his species of thug, Suit Two kept coming. "Try to take this phone from me, and it's battery." _And when I need it, my softball bat's in the closet in my office. Shit-shit-shit-shit-shit-_

"Foggy?"

At the soft interruption, the entire room paused.

Long blonde hair hanging loose, Karen froze, half her body shielded by their flimsy office door. Blue eyes widened as she took in the suits.

"Ms. Karen Page?" Agent Coulson stepped forward.

"Yes." She edged warily into the office, muscles tense as if to dart back through the door at a moment's notice. On arm clamped down on her purse strap, the other tightened around a large casserole dish propped against her hip.

He extended a hand. "Agent Coulson, with the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division. We're here regarding certain events which occurred near this building yesterday. I'd like a moment of your time -"

"Not going to happen," Foggy interjected.

Agent Coulson's hand dropped.

For a long minute, Karen didn't say anything. Her head turned, taking in the resumed movements of Suits One and Three, variously occupied with flipping through papers and finger-combing their way through files. Not a one of them was looking their way, but Foggy would bet his next round at Josie's that they were all focused on the interaction by the door.

Blue eyes ultimately came to rest on Suit Two, looming uncomfortably close to Foggy's face. "Is there a reason your coworker can't respect other people's personal space?" she asked.

Agent Coulson's expression didn't change from the banal affability he'd donned as soon as Karen had made her presence known. "Agent Rollins."

The man stepped back with a gruff, "Sir."

Foggy didn't breathe until Suit Two had turned and walked back to the conference room. Through the glass, he watched as Rollins returned to yanking their secondhand copies of the _North Eastern Reporter_ off the shelves.

"Excuse me," Agent Coulson pulled at Foggy's attention; when he looked, the man's face was turned toward Karen. "Where is your restroom?"

Foggy made his assessment of the other man as obvious as he could. "You seem like the type of guy who'd ask to use the bathroom just to poke through the medicine cabinet."

"Nevermind," Agent Coulson said lightly. _He's looking behind me -_

"Sir." Suit Four was back, hovering in the entrance to the hallway. He clutched a folded, glossy box in one plastic-gloved hand. Foggy tilted his head a bit to read the packaging, and blinked. _L'Oréal?_

Agent Coulson was opening a plastic evidence bag even as he glanced at Karen. "What's this?"

Karen shifted the casserole dish against her hip. "It's for Mr. Murdock. He's got some premature grey." She touched at her temple with the opposite hand, and shrugged. "He's a little self-conscious about it, because he can't exactly see how minor it is."

 _Matt doesn't – oh, no._ Maybe he shouldn't have gone home early last night after all. If six p.m. could be considered "early." _What did they do?_

No teeth showed in Agent Coulson's smile. _He doesn't believe her, not even a little bit._ "Really." Hazel-blue eyes marked with brown skimmed over Foggy and touched on the Suits. "We're done here."

Foggy didn't speak _Secret Agent_ , but there wasn't too much code there for the minions to decipher. As one, they had packed their things and filed out into the hallway – even Rollins, abandoning the conference room – in under a minute.

He traded a confused glance with Karen, who shook her head once, teeth pulling at her bottom lip.

Agent Coulson wasn't smiling; that congenial mask was back. "Thank you for your cooperation."

And he disappeared down the hall.

 _What the hell just happened?_

"Well, that was exciting." Karen closed the door a little harder than necessary.

Wry resignation pulled at one side of his mouth in a grin he didn't want to feel. "It must be a Thursday."

Perfect understanding met his gaze. "I never could get the hang of Thursdays," Karen sighed.

Warmth twisted in his chest at the way she ducked her head, looking up from under pale lashes. Foggy felt his smile brighten, and shoved both file jackets off the crappy swivel chair to plop down on it. "Yeah."

Karen set the casserole dish down on her desk, sinking into her chair with a sigh. "I brought food," she offered.

"Yeah?" Interest perked him up in his seat against the reality of reviewing all their files to see what had been taken. _Who knows how long they were here before I got here?_ "What is it?"

"Desayuno chapín."

"Mmmm."

 _Rrrrrring! Rrrrrring! Rrrrrring!_

Fumbling for his phone, Foggy swore as its protective rubber casing caught against the lining of his pocket. "Hey, Brett. Thanks for getting back to me." Looking up, Foggy met Karen's eyes. She pointed at the sidebar and mouthed _Coffee?_ Nodding, Foggy snagged his briefcase off the floor and headed into his office, leaving the door cracked behind him.

" _What was with the voicemail you left me? It was about ten minutes long, and it sounded like a misdial-"_

One of the Suits hadn't bothered to replace everything they'd gone through; papers spread in a disorganized mishmash across his desk, spilling onto the floor. Foggy rubbed at his eyes. "Yeah, well, I need to tell you about what happened this morning. You're not going to believe this."

* * *

"Report."

A suited body slipped onto the next stool over, dark eyes darting nervously around the bar.

 _You gotta be fuckin' kidding me._ Mouth moving around a chunk of hamburger, Brock let his boredom show.

Sweat glistened on Sitwell's forehead, wetness apparent on shaved-smooth skin where he would otherwise have had hair. True to form, Brock wasn't even halfway through his burger when Sitwell cracked. "Damn it, Rumlow. What's the report!"

 _I don't answer to you._ But the agent's twitchiness was only getting worse, and would start to attract the wrong sort of attention sooner rather than later. _Even paying good money to be left the hell alone won't keep away the looky-loos when Sitwell acts like he's about to have a stroke in the middle of the floor._

It was the damndest thing. Tie the man up with a gun to his head, and he wouldn't flinch. But a snafu in a double-op, and anyone who knew what to look for could sense enough nervous energy to power half of Manhattan. If Sitwell could ever learn to redirect that energy, _then_ he might be a force to be reckoned with. But now…

Every movement lazy, Brock pulled two crushed dots from his right pocket and dropped the little bag on the bar top.

Sitwell scrabbled after it, fingers scraping over battered wood, stuffing it in his own pocket without a glance. "That had better be-"

"That's them," Brock gritted. _I owe Rogers serious pain for that._ Sometime between kicking all their asses – with no more training than basic boot camp from 1942, for Chrissake – and running hell-bent for leather from the alley, Rogers had dumped two of his trackers on members of Brock's team.

Sitwell hadn't stopped whining about it since he'd realized what had happened. Even destroying the trackers hadn't shut him up.

Brock chewed slowly. _He's fast, and he's strong. There's some sort of style there, but nothing incredibly sophisticated._ Next time, Rogers wouldn't have the benefit of their ignorance about what the serum had actually done. _He's bigger than he was, apparently – but Rollins has three inches on him; every member of the team has better training-_

"- even listening?!" Sitwell spat.

"No."

 _Still. Maybe a long-distance strike would be the most effective._ The time frame during which they would actively try to recapture Rogers alive and relatively unharmed was rapidly running out. _Only three more hours and change to go._

At the twenty-four hour mark, all the rules changed as far as the upper levels were concerned.

Ignoring the sputtering on to his right, Brock tore another chunk out of his burger. Muscles bunched as his jaw flexed; flavor meant nothing. Blood seeped onto his tongue from the raw slice on the inside of his cheek where his teeth had split the flesh yesterday. _Order only comes through pain._ He swallowed. "What leads are Coulson's teams running down?"

Frustration pursing his mouth, Sitwell had propped himself against the wall hemming in his stool. Mulish obstinacy would keep him quiet for another three minutes, no more than five.

 _Right._ Brock still had half his burger and a pile of fries to get through. Three bites later, Sitwell started to talk, disgust painted across his face as he stared at Brock's plate. "He's only got one, and it's going cold. There's a law firm in Hell's Kitchen, Nelson  & Murdock. Rogers apparently ran into Murdock after you lost him, and ended up at their office. No idea what he told them, but now he's a client, and they're claiming privilege, refusing to say anything."

Brock grunted, ignoring the dig at his team. _They don't know anything._ If they did, they would know that threatening to go public would probably be the best thing they could do. Not that they could follow through to any great effect, not without SHIELD's backing and the release of certain classified documents. But it had the best chances of Rogers meeting SHIELD on more even ground, with negotiating power.

 _Better for us that they don't._

Elbow absorbing streaks of liquid from the bar as he leant forward, Sitwell lowered his voice. "There's footage from late yesterday evening. Looks like Rogers and Murdock traded clothes, tried to do a classic bait-and-switch, but Murdock is blind; he needed his glasses and cane. Somehow Murdock's clothes ended up back at his apartment, so Rogers was probably there at some point. But the buildings entrances are in blind spots. We can't confirm when he arrived or left, or what direction he went. He's definitely not still there."

Dragging three fries through mustard, Brock swigged at his beer. And tried not to smirk at the knowledge that prissy Sitwell's suit was going to smell of cheap booze for the rest of the day. "The lawyers know."

"Murdock, maybe." Sitwell shook his head. "But how long will that take, waiting for him to make a phone call to a guy who probably doesn't have a phone, or go meet with him? Thanks to Coulson, they know SHIELD's looking. I wouldn't bank on them making contact for..." The other Agent shrugged. "Hell, I don't know. It could be weeks."

"That's too long." Rogers could end up anywhere. _Nowhere is out of HYDRA's reach._ But some places were a little more problematic than others. "Pressure's coming down from the upper levels. The situation needs to be dealt with."

"The upper levels created this _situation_."

 _Man has a death wish._ Brock met Sitwell's eyes, and let the other man see it. Olive skin paled. He kept up eye contact as he ripped another bite of meat from the patty in his hand, and chewed.

Sitwell's Adam's apple bobbed in a silent gulp.

 _Fucking worm._

Brock rolled his eyes, turning back to the bar. Rogers was beyond the reach of SHIELD's protective grasp; and they were coming up on twenty-four hours from initial time of escape. _Pretty soon, all bets are off._

Dunking the last of his fries in spicy dijon, Brock shoved cold potato into his mouth and bit. _He's not still running. He's probably got some sort of temporary base, had the opportunity to refuel, rest, and re-evaluate._

The so-called Captain America might learn that SHIELD wasn't his enemy, and make himself available to be found. He might not. The lawyers might make contact, give themselves away, or lead SHIELD to Rogers. Or they might not.

Either way, SHIELD would be doing the work of monitoring; facial recognition, surveillance on the firm, chasing down any leads that might pop up. It would take time – time that Rogers would be using to form his own opinions of the world he'd woken up in, rather than being fed the views it would be most advantageous for him to hold.

By the time he reappeared on their radar – _and he will_ – there were even odds he wouldn't be led in the direction they needed him to go. _In which case._

All viable options involved time lost to waiting. _Except I just got authorization and orders to use all search time as effectively as possible._ He hadn't gotten where he was today by being ineffective.

And Rogers wasn't only useful as a living, breathing, misguided symbol. _The only successful super-soldier._ It was more than he was paid to waste time wondering why that was; let the scientists dig it out of him if the interrogators never got the chance.

Brock reached for his wallet, forking out a few bills and tossing them onto the bar. "Time for option B."

Halfway to the door, he ignored the rapid hiss of: "What the hell is option B?" as Sitwell stumbled off his stool.

Their most effective weapon would take some time to transport and prime. _Since it's looking more and more likely that SHIELD won't get their hands back on Rogers anytime soon . . ._

Emerging onto the street, Brock pulled out a flip-phone, paid for in cash, under a disposable identity. No information in the call history or contacts. _A blank slate._ He dialed the number he needed from memory.

The other end rang once before it was picked up; not even a breath came through from the recipient.

Sitwell was still on the opposite side of the bar door when Brock spoke, squinting into the early morning sun and casually turned away from the only security camera on the street. "Call in the Asset."


	3. Chapter 3

SOUTHEAST CAM 11  
07:51:42

"We have another number."

"Good morning to you too, Finch." John rounded the table laden with Finch's five computer screens, to where the smaller man had paused before the glass display board. Blue eyes drifted across a picture taped precisely over the large crack arcing down through the center of the pane. "Just one this time?" _Instead of five?_

Finch heard the unspoken question. _He's good at that._ Too good, for a man who had never been trained. "I assure you, Mr. Reese, that our last venture was _not_ the norm," he said, just the slightest bit sour.

 _Explosions, mafia dons, Carter… being Carter._ Coffee rolling richly over his tongue, John swallowed. "Seemed pretty typical to me." A fleck of white against the deep black of his sleeve caught his eye, and he flicked the speck of lint away.

Reaching up, Finch secured another sheet of paper just below the picture, thumb pressing scotch tape down firmly. "Let's hope it doesn't become so." Shifting right, the slighter man limped the short distance to his computer chair.

From the corner of one blue eye, John tracked his progress. Today's brown suit was ever-so-slightly looser than the usual cut, and a little older, from the wear at the hems; atypically, the smaller man had foregone his usual waistcoat. _Stiff. Not moving as quickly as I've seen._ It didn't bode well for the state of his employer's sleep the previous night. _Given the outcome of the last set of numbers, not surprising._ He'd have to wait to see if that was all it was.

Finch kept speaking as he walked. "Beyond the implications as to Elias's actions, I'm not sure we have the resources to adequately deal with multiple numbers on a near-daily basis."

 _Which reminds me._ "Why was that?" John turned, eyes briefly skimming book-laden shelves before landing on his employer.

A pause. "What do you mean, Mr. Reese?" Finch didn't look at him.

Back to the board, John took another sip of coffee before continuing. "Well, Harold, your Machine could have given us Elias's number. It has before. But instead, it gave us the dons." Which was very interesting. Long fingers tensed briefly on the warm cup. "Now, there's no way the Machine could know all the dons were in danger and _not_ know that Elias was the perpetrator." It had been near-immediately obvious, given their prior knowledge of Elias.

Finch settled into his chair, eyes flicking between monitors, hands coming to rest at the base of his primary keyboard. "You're saying the Machine _chose_ to give us the dons' numbers rather than Elias's."

"I'm saying that the last time we got Elias's number, we confused our perpetrator for our victim. We wouldn't make that mistake again." The cup in his hand was noticeably lighter than it had been at the start of this conversation.

"But?" Finch had split his attention between three of the monitors, and their conversation. The steady _clack_ of one of his keyboards became a soothing undertone to John's words.

Five steps brought him out of the enclosed nook that housed Finch's technology. John rested one hand against the wooden tabletop. "But it's a guarantee that Elias had more balls in the air than just his plan to consolidate – or eliminate – the dons. So the Machine knew we'd figure it out faster if it gave us all the victims, obviously connected, rather than making us take the time to pull apart all of Elias's schemes."

Not that having the time seemed to have made much difference in the end. Of the five numbers they had received, Elias had successfully eliminated four – two of which he accomplished after being imprisoned. _Not including the collateral damage._

But that wasn't the point. _Elias isn't predictable._ Not precisely; not to John. What he was, was understandable. _Which is just different enough to make a difference._ At least when it came to human analysis, of necessity usually based on limited knowledge. _But the Machine sees everything; it has to, to predict when people are going to be involved in violent crimes. That's the whole point._

But _this_ was a step beyond connecting, beyond predicting. This was _reasoning_. The Machine was a computer. A vast, all-seeing, bank of code. _Is that even possible?_

Windows opened and minimized rapidly across the screens that held Finch's attention, even as characters appeared with every keystroke. John tracked the reflections, spotlessly mirrored in Harold's glasses.

His employer didn't bother to look up. "It's a program, Mr. Reese. Not a person. It calculates, analyzes, and compiles. It doesn't think."

"Are you sure?"

The smaller man finally twisted, as much as his fused cervical spine let him, to meet John's gaze. "To make the Machine do what I needed it to do, I had to teach it about people. But in order to teach it, I had to make it able to learn. And with learning, comes…." He paused, eyes down as he searched for a word.

"Evolution," John asserted.

That got him a flat stare. "I wouldn't put it quite that way."

"How would you put it, Finch?"

"Growing, Mr. Reese," Finch said gently.

Blue eyes met blue, neither conceding. "Semantics, Finch?"

Finch gazed at him, expression almost unreadable. Almost. _Thinking. Good._ Harold was a genius; the man's intelligence shone through even when his employer didn't mean it to. He had built the Machine, and in some ways, it was his child. _That's the thing about kids. They're always surprising you._

He'd said his piece. "Our new number." John moved back to the board, tapping his index finger on the edge of the photo. "What's her story?"

"Elena Cardenas." When Finch pushed himself out of his chair and returned to the display board, he did so with more pictures in his hands.

"Sixty-three years old, living in a tenement at 44th and 11th, in Hell's Kitchen. Immigrated from Guatemala in 1978 with her husband Arcelio. He died in a car accident in 1994. She has three children, all grown and with families of their own. One moved upstate, another to Florida, and the last went back to Guatemala." Three pictures went up, of two men and a woman. The trio all looked more similar to one another than to Mrs. Cardenas, though John could see hints of her in the slope of noses, and the line of her daughter's chin. Finch's voice was quiet. "All the rest of her family is distant, and in Guatemala."

John assessed the main photo, cropped from a candid still of a church group. Small, slight, with fading hair that had once been dark and lines where years of laughter had marked her face. Thin lenses perched on her nose above a flash of bright red lipstick, with touches of gold hanging from her ears in thin hoops; a small cross visible high on her neck, where the top button of her flowered shirt was undone. Everything about her said _harmless._ "Any reason why the Machine gave us her number?"

"Nothing obvious," Finch murmured, smoothing down the last pieces of tape with one finger. "Her financials are extremely modest. She has no criminal history – not even any parking tickets, since she doesn't own a car." Short brown hair tipped in a nod. "No connections, not even remote ones, to any suspicious businesses. No online activity, computer or smartphone as far as I can tell. I should have all the information about her past in Guatemala within the next two hours. At the moment, I think it's safe to say she's more likely the victim than the perpetrator, in this instance."

The Agency had taught John that everyone had enemies – the numbers they worked had proven it. _So who are hers?_ "Seems innocuous," he mused, eyes on the smiling face beaming out at them from the display board. "Who would want her dead?"

Finch didn't shrug – the fusing of his cervical spine precluded his body from moving in certain ways. "I suppose you'd better go find out."

* * *

A single glance told him everything he needed to know. "It didn't go well."

Fury clenched his teeth, muscles tightening around his eye and pulling at the faint scars stretching from the edge of his black eyepatch back toward his temple. "No, it did not."

Wheeling on one foot, the Director marched back down the corridor away from the conference room designated for WSC meetings. Coulson picked up his pace, a mere two steps behind. "I apologize, sir, if any of my actions complicated the situation."

Fury snorted, not slowing down. "It's not _your_ actions that were the issue, Coulson. What's the status?"

"Nothing from the files retrieved from Nelson & Murdock," he pulled up the most recent reports on his tablet as he paced the Director. "They work quickly, I'll give them that."

The Director pressed a palm to an otherwise innocuous section of matte metal wall plating. _Level 8 access._ Coulson noted the location as a concealed panel slid open to reveal a deserted hallway terminating at an elevator's closed doors. Fury barely slowed. "It's likely that anything they had was minimal anyway."

"Even so. I'm sure there are notes we didn't find. The secretary in particular seemed…" Phil searched a moment for the right word to encapsulate the blend of nerves and confidence coming from the young blonde. "Competent."

"They know where he is." Fury stopped, shoulders slumping under his black shirt.

Pulling up alongside, Coulson risked a sideways glance. "Almost certainly."

"That's going to be a problem." Reluctance painted every word.

"Surely the World Security Council isn't going to have them brought in." Two lawyers fresh out of law school, starting up their own firm in Hell's Kitchen; and their secretary. Not an intimidating group, and not an obstacle to SHIELD's process – normally. _Nelson has connections in higher places than immediately apparent._ And Murdock, in lower.

Between the two of them, there was the potential for more problems than the norm. Ms. Page was less of a concern, but had something of a history of stirring up and squeaking out of trouble. _Recruitment to Sci-Tech has been negatively impacted because of the buzz in the scientific community about SHIELD intervention for 084's; the last thing we need is to stir up the lawyers._ A demographic typically difficult to intimidate and not shy about their opinions, with Murdock and Nelson demonstrably appearing to fall into that mold. _Stir up enough Bar Associations across the states, get enough word generated…_ Not ideal.

But dealing with these two was still a significant distance away from those type of consequences.

Fury heaved a sigh, beginning to move once more. "I managed to convince the Council, given the profiles worked up, that that would be more trouble than it's worth, for now. But I won't be able to keep that from happening without results. General Ross's name came up as an individual able to get them."

The man had tracked Bruce Banner across two continents – and created the Abomination in his single-minded zeal. _Give him a crack at potentially getting his hands on the only living sample of the successful super-soldier serum, rather than a knock-off…_ "That would be a disaster."

"Agreed. It's off the table, for now." The unconcern in Fury's voice was the same tone he'd had when discussing Stark's palladium poisoning; and just as false. "We need to keep it that way."

 _According to protocol…_ Phil kept his eyes on his tablet. "Persuasion would be the next viable option."

That got him a short laugh. "That might work better if we hadn't gone in and pissed them off by taking their files. For all the good that did us." The elevator opened soundlessly as they approached; Fury backed into a corner, hands braced on the rails.

Phil blanked out the tablet screen, looking ahead as the elevator rushed upwards. Fury remained staring down at the floor, mouth a thin line. _Which leaves only one option._ "We have passive surveillance in place. It would probably be best to give them some time to settle back into their routine before introducing a more active element." _Not too much time, though, if the WSC is chomping at the bit._

"Mmm-hmmm." From the creases on his brow, Fury was running through names. "When is Agent Romanov's extraction?"

Phil frowned. _That's a very particular skillset._ "Six weeks, at most. Do we have that much time?" _And why Natasha, out of all the agents available?_

The elevator doors opened, disgorging them into a small entryway. The Director pressed his hand to the wall at waist-height, and a door slid open to the right, revealing a familiar office. Phil followed as his supervisor made his way to the desk, settling into the leather chair waiting there. Fury's good eye met Phil's gaze. "We're at the 48-hour mark. That timeframe alone has pushed this op down from Level 1 to Level 3, and I've convinced the World Security Council that we need to appropriately adjust our expectations for a more long-term retrieval."

"Hence Romanov?" He didn't disagree. But. "It's underutilizing a significant portion of her skills."

"That remains to be seen."

Phil held back a frown. _What does he know that I don't?_ Nelson  & Murdock was a small law firm barely scraping by, staffed by two lawyers remarkable only for their legal acumen at such a young age, and a secretary whose street smarts were the only thing that had kept her from an unfortunate end. _I'll have to look into it more closely._ For the Director to hint at even that much, there was significantly more going on under the surface than was immediately apparent.

Fury rested one hand on his desk, and leant back in his chair. "Slate Romanov for it on her extraction and debriefing. The setting's not unfamiliar to her, and Natalie Rushman has the appropriate qualifications."

 _And a little shadowing in Manhattan would be practically a vacation, after her current assignment._

Which left them six weeks to preempt Natasha's involvement. "And in the meantime?"

"That's the bad news." Fury met Phil's eyes, resignation in the rub of fingers over his mouth.

"I'm not going to like this, am I," Phil sighed. He lowered himself into one of the plush chairs opposite the Director's desk, unable to convince his spine to relax from ramrod-straight posture into the welcoming leather.

"Probably not," Fury said bluntly. "The Council is prioritizing finding Rogers over maintaining his good press."

Tension ached in Phil's temples; he unclenched his jaw. _I already don't like the sound of this._ "What does that mean?"

That got him an _I know you know better_ look. "Exactly what it sounds like. I've been ordered to alert the appropriate intelligence authorities to prevent him from potentially leaving the country."

 _Or getting any further than he already has._ "Do you really think that's likely?" Linking his fingers together, Phil leant over, forearms across his knees.

"Doubtful. Then again, it's clear we don't know what to expect from him."

The profile had been large on the man's strategic genius and short on pertinent behavioral information to form any solid analyses. _Not exactly the thing people focused on memorializing in the 40's._

Of course, there was another problem. With the WSC's directives, there usually was. "Sir – how can we put Captain America on a terror watch list and still expect him to be able to perform as desired following reacquisition?"

"He's not going on FBI's Most Wanted, Coulson. Just the no-fly list." Of course Fury had thought about it; the team he was contemplating needed a captain – preferably one with good press. _Or at the very least better than Stark's._

Carefully cultivated or not, Stark's PR was focused on spinning his temperamental genius into something profitable – especially given his unfortunate tendency to deliberately antagonize anyone he pleased, from reporters to Congressmen.

Leaning back, Phil rubbed briefly at the building pressure in his temple. "With all due respect, sir, that's not much better. We have no idea how he's going to interpret that, when he finds out." It didn't need to be said that the no-fly list was the mildest aspect of the alert that was going to cross the desks of agents in every law enforcement agency in the country.

"He's not going to." Fury let out a controlled breath. His eye locked on Phil's, gravity in every line of his face. "What I'm about to tell you goes no further."

Phil's spine straightened at the gravity in the Director's voice. "Understood."

One dark eye scanned him, but the moment of assessment was brief. They'd been working together for years, each other's measure long since taken. "I have a contact in the ISA who's working with a sophisticated surveillance program that, as far as I can tell, has tapped into the NSA feeds across the nation."

Interest prodded him upright. _I've never heard of it._ Which meant it was above his paygrade; far above, it sounded potential of such a surveillance program was… staggering. _Think about it later._ "Someone who owes you a favor, sir?"

"No. Someone who wants me to owe one. But," Fury raised a hand as Phil opened his mouth in protest.

 _I don't like the sound of this._ But Fury hadn't made it to Director of SHIELD without knowing what he was doing. Phil subsided, forcing his shoulders back against his chair.

"This is the only way I can avoid having to alert the alphabet soup agencies and still potentially return results. Whatever the World Security Council thinks, getting more agencies involved is only going to muddy the waters."

And it neatly circumvented explicitly labelling Rogers as a criminal or terrorist to government agencies who wouldn't look further for an explanation. _But given the scope of that kind of surveillance, the manpower required to return results…_ Six weeks couldn't be enough time. Could it? "Contingencies, sir?"

"I thought I'd leave that to you." Fury raised an eyebrow. "That is, if you have any ideas?"

Phil breathed a silent sigh of relief, powering up the tablet again. "One or two, sir."

"Good. Let's hear it."

* * *

"Resize to original." The hologram twisted in a streak of blue as he flicked his wrist, sending the image into a tailspin even as JARVIS shrank the design.

"Sir, initial calculations indicate that the current design will increase the weight of the right gauntlet by 2.54 kilograms. Accordingly, the right repulsors will need to compensate for weight and drag by a minimum of 107% of unmodified output."

"Keep your pants on, JARVIS." Sticking out a palm, Tony jolted the spinning image to a stop. A quick slide, and the hologram slipped over his right forearm and settled into place. "I'll figure something out." Blue shadows faithfully tracked each flex of his fingers. "That's why this is a prototype." _Hmm. Smooth out the lines here, and … here. Aerodynamics with a trade-off in weight…_ "What about when the laser itself is engaged?" Tart-sweet burst over his tongue as he popped a blueberry's skin with his teeth.

Subtle displeasure in every word, JARVIS intoned, "Power expenditure will increase to 132% of baseline."

 _Even with the reduced tube size the beam should be powerful enough to cut through most alloys –_ the number JARVIS quoted suddenly registered, and Tony looked up blankly. "We only need it for flame-cutting, there shouldn't be that much of a draw." The hologram tracked his movements as he bent his elbow, twisting his wrist to examine the flexion in the joint with the additional components packed in along the ventral forearm.

A sibilation of pressurized air announced Pepper's arrival in advance of her voice. "- right now." His workshop door closed behind her with a pneumatic _hiss_.

He could hear her smile, even before he looked up to catch the slight curve of pink-painted lips. Today's number was a flowing, draped blouse tucked into a high-waisted pencil skirt, cinched with a thin belt; the entire ensemble did wonders for her figure, every slim curve accentuated. Bright copper hair fell loosely to her shoulders, framing high cheekbones and a slender neck. Allowed to look, Tony took a moment to preen. _All mine, folks._

Whatever she saw in his face made the hidden smile blossom. Her hand came up to take the phone that she'd pressed between ear and shoulder when she keyed open the door. Tony side-eyed the tablet in her other hand. "Thanks, Flynn. You too."

 _Flynn?_ Curiosity reared. "Flynn?" He didn't – quite – straighten in his seat. Grabbing the gauntlet with the opposite hand, Tony peeled the image off to crack open the hologram and expose the incorporated laser design. Dark eyes never left her.

Pepper glanced at him, and he saw the smile fighting to grow even as she rolled her eyes. "Give Charlene my best? Okay. Thanks. Bye."

Something in him that had been thinking about bristling in jealousy subsided. _I know what you just did there. It didn't work._ It kind of did, though; but he still didn't bother to wait for her to finish hanging up the phone before asking, "Who's Flynn?" In two motions, he'd enlarged the image to reveal the laser's inner workings, and begun modifying the design to reduce power draw.

She didn't look up until she'd slipped the phone into a discreet pocket. When she did, he could see her working to push away the upward curls at the edges of her lips. "We went to college together. He was going for his Ph.D. in Museum and Curatorial Studies."

It took a moment for her words to register, he was so focused on her mouth. _Oh._ Tony sniffed, playing up the obligatory sneer as she moved closer. "Ugh. Humanities."

Blue eyes were focused on the tablet. "It's a Ph.D. -"

 _Yeah, and?_ "I have two." Tony folded the gauntlet's casing closed between his palms, compressing it back to original size with a pinch of two fingers.

Pepper looked up, amusement now only in her eyes. The glow of the tablet in his dimly lit workshop cast her pale skin in pure white, a faint shadow following the line of one wavy tendril of hair. "Yes, I know you have two. He has more than one as well."

That made Tony blink for a second, pausing with his hand half in the gauntlet. "How many?"

"I didn't keep track." One pale brow lifted. "Does it matter?"

"Not if the other's in something as boring as – what did you say?" He finished fitting the hologram into place, fingers spreading reflexively. _Can't really get a feel for the weight difference until the prototype stage…_

Pepper's attention slid back to the tablet. "Museum and -"

"- Curatorial Studies. Right." Sitting wasn't working for him; Tony popped up, blue hologram following his hand as he rounded the bank of computers toward the center of the projection space. "And I said: boring."

"Well, it's not." Pepper trailed him, heels _click_ ing against the floor. In the far glass wall, her reflection focused entirely on the tablet in her hands.

Tony stopped short a few steps into the projection space, turning sharply on his heel. "How would you know?" Studied nonchalance coated every word. Pepper had double-majored in economics and mathematics at Stanford, and her MBA was from Wharton. He'd seen her transcripts, at some point. _No "Museum and Curatorial Studies."_ "JARVIS, save changes."

"Very good, sir."

She didn't even look up. "We talk."

Tony redirected to the gauntlet on his wrist, turning the hologram inside out as he peeled it off. "What about?" Brown eyes darted up just in time to recognize a gimlet glance; and much too late to do anything about the too-intent tone in his voice.

 _That_ got her attention; the tablet ended up perched on a corner of his workbench, and Pepper ended up with her arms folded under her breasts, one hip cocked. "Art, Tony. Modern Art, even, sometimes."

 _Right, the minor in art history_. He couldn't hold back the wince. "Is this about the art collection again?"

"No, but it could be."

 _Stepped right into that._ In an effort to save face, he opened his mouth. "Because the Boy Scouts sent me a thank-you note. It was really, very…" Jaw moving, Tony faltered on the numerous adjectives available to describe the massive, four-foot high card slathered with handprints, notes, and signatures in every shade of the rainbow and several more that were decidedly not. _Decisions, decisions._ Snapping his fingers to cover the silence, the blue projection fluttered with every movement, flapping ridiculously.

Pepper pounced. "Very what?"

"… Grubby," he blurted. The gauntlet vanished into a folder with a flick. _Saved. And, next…_ "Lots of fingerpaint. Possibly some snot." It _had_ been dotted with a few suspicious streaks.

"It was not grubby." Pepper's lips thinned, the line of her neck straightening.

 _Uh-oh._ "Did I say grubby?" He tried a smile, backpedaling. "I meant thoughtful. But that's beside the point."

A tilt of her head feathered copper-gold strands across the pale pink silk covering her shoulders. "You had a point?"

Tony reached for – something, turning away from the irritation in blue eyes. His hands found a multi-tool, fingers working to unfold greased metal. _Casual. Confident. Genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist. Versus a museum curator._ "I did, and my point is, Flynn. Why was he calling you?"

He must have missed some sort of shift while he was glancing down, because Pepper's next words came out more gently than he probably deserved. "He's trying to put together an exhibit."

"An exhibit, at a museum. Shocking," Tony sniffed, dropping the multi-tool to flick open another folder projected alongside the back of his desk. He occupied his hands and eyes rifling through files projected around him in blue. "He does work at a museum?"

Pepper's voice was moving closer, accompanied by the familiar _click_ of her heels. "He works at the Metropolitan Public Library."

 _The what now?_ Never pausing in his perusal of half-finished projects in the "Fun" folder, Tony didn't let a muscle in his face carry anything into his expression. _Have to have JARVIS dig it up._ "Never heard of it." _Which means it can't be that-_

"It's an arm of the Metropolitan Museum of Art." A touch of warmth crossed the space between them as Pepper stopped at his side.

 _Or it can. Okay._ "Yeah, still not ringing any bells." He didn't look up, one hand reaching out to fiddle with the scaled model for the converter that would take Stark Tower off the grid when affixed to the mains running under the Hudson. "What did he want, a suit? It's proprietary tech, I feel like I just told Congress that-"

"No, he doesn't want the suit." Pepper didn't even look up from her tablet. Out of the corner of one eye, Tony could make out a company-wide memo on recent stock fluctuations, complete with helpful graph. _Looks like the last six quarters…_

Then what she'd said registered; vague effrontery reared up, and started to gather steam. "What? Why doesn't he want the suit? Everyone wants the suit." _Hammer, North Korea, Iran, Pakistan, Iraq -_

"Not the Met."

Tony snuck a glance at her face; beautiful, and placidly in keeping with her perpetual level-headed calm. _Well, he wants something._ Time for the indirect approach. He darted his gaze away just as her eyes started to shift up from what was probably minutes from yesterday's Board meeting. Two fingers resized the converter, and he started to fiddle with the connectors that would redirect current into an alternate loop. "What's it about? The exhibit."

Down went the tablet, at long last. "Well, that depends."

"On what?"

There was a moment, while she watched him fiddle with blue holographic wiring, before Pepper spoke. She still wasn't looking at him; and Tony was outright staring now, fingers moving thoughtlessly over the model. _Note to self - don't save any of these changes._

"On what items they get from auction next week, and from what donors are willing to contribute."

 _Huh._ Tony pulled his fingers back from the hologram, resetting to the prior save with a few taps, before he folded it all away in favor of a blank screen. "I feel like you answered my question without answering my question at all."

That won him a smile. "That's because I did."

It had to be money. Maybe because he was a friend of hers… "He called to ask for a donation, right, that's the only reason why he would call you for an exhibit." Crossing his arms over his chest, Tony turned and propped one hip against the edge of one of his workbenches.

She finally turned to meet his eyes. "Not the only reason, no."

"Well. The modern art collection is with the Boy Scouts, so-"

"Is that really something you want to be reminding me about, Tony?" Still warmth, there, but rapidly cooling.

"No, definitely not." _The amount, then._ Pepper was the corporate end of Stark Industries now; it would take a significant number of zeros to make her this uneasy. "How much did he want?"

"He didn't ask for money." Her tone held surety that this Flynn never would; not for that, at least. _But he did ask for something._ And the way Pepper was dancing around it….

"I'm not going to like this, am I." _Only two things make her act like this; something she really wants, and something she knows is going to-_

On the heels of a suppressed sigh, she said, "He wanted to know if you'd be willing to loan any of your father's materials from his work in the war." Pepper even ripped off the metaphorical band-aid delicately.

 _Knew it._ Tony pushed down the too-familiar twisting in his gut that flared up at the conjunction of _father_ and _war_. Just because he could feel his arms tensing, the tightening of his fingers around his own biceps, didn't mean he could stop it. "Dad was a scientist, he made weapons. That's not art. It's definitely not going to end up in a _public library_. So why do they care?"

She tilted one shoulder in a low shrug. "There's some excavation that recently turned up some artifacts from World War II. From what information's available about the discovery and the items up for auction, he thinks your father could have been involved in their development. He wants to see if any of the papers corroborate that theory."

A short laugh barked free. "Good luck with that. Three quarters of his stuff is classified or proprietary, and the rest is crappy ideas that never went anywhere. Flying cars, a gas that would keep soldiers up for days, that kind of thing. Anything he generated was either a completed weapon that got used and patented, or a prototype that never went anywhere. Usually for good reason." Tony had to turn away, back to the "Fun" file that JARVIS had obligingly reduced, though his mood was now too sour to even want to re-open the hodgepodge of old ideas. _Probably in seventy years someone's going to want to pick over that, too._

When Pepper spoke, her voice was wonderfully neutral. "Would you let them look?"

It was only that neutrality which clamped down on Tony's knee-jerk refusal. He took a moment to unclench his teeth, two fingers rubbing briefly at his temple. "I thought the Met didn't do artifacts. Not like this."

"They don't," she shook her head. "There's a collaboration with the Smithsonian, I think, to get the items from auction. There's still some debate over final ownership, though that wouldn't impact any objects on loan. The plan is for a travelling exhibit, though it would premier in New York first since the auction is here."

She wasn't saying he owed her, even though he probably did. She wasn't saying it would make her happy, even though it probably would. _Besides. I've been through everything that he had packed away._ And hadn't _that_ been a fun few days under house arrest by Super Nanny. Most of his father's junk was just that, jumbled into a disorganized mess at best. _And the chance that he even finds anything connected? That he can afford?_

He'd take those odds.

Tony barreled past the twisting in his gut, and narrowed his eyes. "What do I get out of this arrangement?"

She read him perfectly and the slight tension around her mouth disappeared, only noticeable in its absence. Something fond took its place and shone through in her voice. "The satisfaction of aiding cultural growth and contributing to the preservation of knowledge for future generations not enough for you?"

"Not even slightly." He eyed her critically. "But if you were to take out that blue number, with the draped back, that I bought you a few years ago. You know the one."

"You mean my birthday gift, from you?" Her sly humor peeked out at him.

Warmth suffused him, and he didn't bother to hold back his smile as it chased away the last of the chill in his belly. "That's the one."

One copper brow arched high, even as his arm snaked around her waist. Fingers spread over the small of her back, the thin pink silk of her blouse luxurious to the touch. Tony kept his face impressively bland.

"When, exactly, would you expect me to wear it? There aren't any events coming up in the next month." Pepper could play hard to get with the best of them.

"This would be a private showing." Tony pulled her close, needing to feel her pressed to him.

She leant in for the briefest moment of contact, her arms warm on his shoulders. Her smile overcame the kiss. "I could be persuaded."

Tony quirked a smile back. "JARVIS, take note of the auction, would you?"

"In your calendar, sir?"

"You got it."

She leant near even after he let go. "Why do you want to know that?"

 _An ounce of prevention. Two ounces, even._ Which of course he couldn't say. "Well, if this… _Flynn_ is going to come knocking at my door, I want to have an idea when I can expect to be annoyed."

"Mmm-hmm." She nodded, not believing him in the slightest, he could tell. But she left it alone in favor of picking up her tablet from where it had been discarded on his workbench. "So you're giving permission to loan the papers out to the Met for the exhibit?"

Tony coughed. "There are no papers, there's nothing there to find." One hand flapped, and a nearby hologram mistook the gesture as a command to explode across the room into a variety of sub-folders. Three spilled open, leaving old prototypes virtually scattered across and through two work benches and a sleeping DUM-E. "It's a bunch of junk."

"Then there's no problem if they take a look, is there?" She turned to follow him as he headed back to his chair, kicking holograms back into their folders as he went.

Tony twisted to walk backwards for the last few steps. "Did you do something different with your hair?" He tilted his head. "I feel like you did something different. It's – smooth. Bouncy."

Pepper smiled. "I'll let Flynn know you said yes."

"Yes?" He plopped down onto his chair. Springs bobbed beneath him, the entire motion unkind to his lower back. _Ow. Crap._ "That was not a yes. How did you hear a yes in that?"

"I heard a subject change." She stopped just at the risers to the workspace, declining to step up into the cluttered area. Light flickered as the tablet woke up; Pepper flicked through the screens at speed, though he caught her glancing up at him with a hint of caution in her eyes.

A packet of dried blueberries spilled over the glass worktop. Popping one in his mouth, Tony chewed and focused on sweeping the last of his projects back into their appointed folders. _Mmm._ Silence sat between them, comfortable despite its rarity.

After a minute, Tony broke the stillness and swiveled to look at her. "It's important to you, that your – friend – get this exhibit together?"

That got Pepper's attention, and propelled her up the few steps into his workspace. She found a clear section of his worktop and perched on it, bending to catch his eyes squarely. "Flynn is just an acquaintance, Tony."

"Not even a friend?" He just needed to check.

She shook her head. "Not even a friend."

"Okay," Tony muttered through a mouthful of blueberries.

Pepper brightened, her back straightening. "Okay, he can have the papers?"

Honesty was a thing they did. Sometimes he wasn't so great with it, but this seemed important. Besides. He was going to win this, on _his_ terms. Tony held up a finger. "Okay: if he can win a bid on any of the items up for sale that my dad actually worked on, he can _look_. No promises on if he can _have_ anything."

"I'll take it." Pepper heaved a silent breath; Tony saw her body move with the strength of it, though she didn't make a sound. The tablet's screen went dark in her hand. "About the project for the Tower. How's it going?"

"Swimmingly." Leaning back in his chair, Tony huffed a sigh, then remembered. _Ah. Right._ "Speaking of. How do you feel about Cambridge?" The blueberries didn't lose their deliciousness no matter how many he ate at once. Tilting back his head, Tony funneled a handful into his mouth.

"Cambridge, Massachusetts?" Pepper blinked, copper strands whirling as she refocused with a brief shake of her head.

Through a mouthful of mashed blueberry, he mumbled, "Cambridge, England." Despite being difficult to swallow, the taste was still worth it.

"Why England?"

"Why _not_ England?" He popped another handful of blueberries, talking through the required chewing. "I mean, the Queen; David Beckham; Cadbury – mmm, fish and chips."

"Why Cambridge, England, Tony?" That was her _I'm-less-amused_ tone.

"Well, there's this neat little company headquartered in Cambridge. England," he specified.

Pepper closed her eyes, face turned down as she suppressed a smile.

Tony turned back to his workbench, avoiding her eyes in favor of playing with the near-empty packet of blueberries. Plastic _crinkled_ under his fingertips. "Turns out they're prosecuting a patent for an underwater cutting laser kind of like the one I'm putting in the suit."

He could practically hear the smile disappear.

"'Kind of like'?" Cloth shifted as Pepper looked up, scooting further back on the worktop. "How 'like' is _kind of like_?"

Tony didn't glance her way. "Very like, in fact."

"Very like patent infringement?"  
"Who said patent infringement?" He blinked, going for innocent. "I didn't. That was you."

"Tony-" Exasperation, bleeding into genuine irritation.

A calm voice with a now regrettably English accent cut in. "I will send the company's information to your tablet, Miss Potts."

He winced.

"Thank you, JARVIS." She stood, heels _click_ ing down the steps.

Tony straightened, popping to his feet and following her to the workroom floor. "Wait, where are you going? We're having a conversation here."

In a blink she turned, one hand braced on her hip, voice strident. "You want the underwater cutting laser?"

"Ah." He stopped short, one finger raised. "I _need_ the underwater cutting laser. Subtle difference."

"Well, I _need_ to avoid a lawsuit." Heels _click_ ed ominously as she advanced on him. "Yesterday, if you're already in design."

Tony held up both hands, palms out in a silent _stop_. "I'm not in design."

"Good." Pepper folded her arms under her breasts, face mere inches away.

He focused on the bridge of her nose. "I mean, do you know how long it takes to miniaturize an underwater cutting laser? Months."

Her mouth dropped open for a brief second before she found words. "Tony, you didn't."

He kept his eyes moving down and across her cheekbones, refusing to meet her gaze, mouth running away with him. "And you're on a schedule, I know you're on a schedule, you sent me the schedule -"

Not that it mattered; one slender hand rubbed at her brows, blocking her expression even as her face turned upward. "Of course you did," Pepper muttered to the ceiling. "What prototype are you on?"

"- twice. May Day, wasn't it? Ushering in the newest sustainable initiative along with the ancient spring festival-"

Her hand shifted to her temple, fingers pressing just above her ear. "It's the Mark 6, isn't it?" she asked. A disbelieving laugh escaped her. "It is."

On damage control, his mouth kept moving. "And it's not like anyone's going to _know_ , I mean, it's for underwater cutting. Not such great visibility, at the bottom of the Hudson."

She speared him with a glare. "Until you need to use it somewhere other than the bottom of the Hudson, and someone catches you on camera."

Tony swallowed, and took a breath. "That's not going to happen." Supremely confident.

"Really?" Copper brows arced in disbelief.

"Really." Tony tilted his head, considering. "Probably."

Even though he could see her eyes rolling, she leant in for a quick kiss before striding to the door. "If you need me, I'll be in Legal."

* * *

"Nelson and Murdock." Ear pressed to the receiver, Karen circled her desk to perch on the end of her chair.

" _This is Alex, with Consolidated Edison's Billing Department."_

"Yes?" Movement at the top of her field of vision pulled her head up, attention veering from the phone conversation to the reporter at the door.

A bored drone assaulted her ear. _"I'm calling regarding your statement issued in February, 2012. The bill is now sixty days past due."_

 _Oh, shit._ Karen fumbled for a pen. "What is the date of that statement, please?"

Ben tipped his head toward the door, one hand on the knob already.

She nodded, palming loose blonde strands back from her face and reaching for a drawer by her knee.

" _February 12, 2012."_

Refocusing on the voice on the other end of the line, Karen cleared her throat. "One moment please, while I locate the paperwork." She glanced up in time to see the door close behind Ben with a gentle _click_.

Foggy snagged the copy of the Bulletin off the edge of her desk with a frown. Ignoring him, she rifled through the folders that she'd reorganized only days ago. _Lease, phone, internet, where's – ah!_

"What's it say?" Matt, following the rustle of newsprint to stand at Foggy's side.

Karen separated out the statement, and one late notice – with interest. _Damn._ She plugged her opposite ear briefly, to block out the low murmur of Foggy reading the article to Matt.

 _"Ma'am?"_

"Yes, I'm here," she checked the bill again, frowning at the numbers on the thirty-day notice. "What's the amount due?"

 _"$284.72. The initial amount due was $274.83, subject to a 1.8% interest rate."_

And they had exactly $412.95 in the company checking account, which had to cover not just the _next_ electric bill, but rent, internet, phone, and MetroCards for Matt and Foggy. _And we'd all like to be paid enough to eat._ "Is there any way we could pay that in installments?"

 _"I can set up an installment plan, however, interest will continue to accrue on the unpaid principal until the total amount is remitted to your account."_

A headache was looming at the promise of more time trapped on the phone with the monotone worker bee at the other end. Suppressing a sigh, she clamped the receiver between ear and shoulder, and grabbed a pad to write down whatever relevant details the drone was about to throw at her. "Let's do that, then."

Ten unnecessarily complicated minutes later left her with an installment plan and fifty less dollars in the firm's checking account, but no headache. _Yet._ "I need coffee," she muttered.

A steaming mug, with what looked like just the right amount of milk and a hint of sugar, appeared almost under her nose. Karen blinked, and looked up at Matt's quirked smile. "You're a saint," she breathed, easing the mug away from him. Fingers curled around warm ceramic, she took a moment just to close her eyes and breathe in the scent of black caffeine and sweetness.

Her moment of peace was broken by Foggy's startled, "What are you-"

Karen opened her eyes to Matt holding her desk lamp upturned in one hand, and a quarter in the other.

 _No. Not a quarter._ The same size, pale, but its surface was dotted with circuitry and microchips and something that looked like a miniature microphone–

The bitterness of coffee washed over her tongue, and she almost choked. When she found her voice, it emerged too high, too loud. "What the hell is that?"

Foggy stepped to the end of her desk, shoulder-to-shoulder with Matt. "It's a bug."

A quick breath lifted Matt's chest. "Roaches? I thought we had exterminators come through." He settled her lamp back into its narrow slot between piles of paper without a hitch.

Swallowing hard, Karen pulled her eyes from the device in Matt's hand and met Foggy's eyes, finding a match for her worry there. She said, slowly, "That was for the rats."

"Not sure they cover this," Foggy murmured. One hand fisted briefly at his side.

That won him a shrug from Matt. "Then we'll have to do something about it ourselves."

Foggy sputtered, "Like what?"

The little device settled gently against her desktop, drawing her gaze and refusing to release it. Innocuous, for all the frightening things it represented.

Matt tilted his head side to side as he moved to the potted plant she'd tucked into the corner of the windowsill. When he turned back to them, he had another device pinched between thumb and forefinger. "I don't know, put some traps around?"

 _Two in here alone? Or more than two…_ She fought back a shudder. "Do you think they're in every room?" Karen gritted. Unease creeped down the back of her neck, pulling up goosebumps on her arms.

"Probably," Foggy spun around, following Matt's stuttering progress from the window to the sidebar where their coffee machine resided. His recovery was a beat late. "I mean, in an old building like this?"

Teeth denting her lower lip, Karen glanced Foggy's way. "You think that's why?"

"Why?" One hand digging in the mechanical guts of the Keurig, Matt frowned.

She flapped a hand at the disconcerting little device perched on the edge of her desk. "Why we have – roaches."

"I can think of at least one reason," Foggy turned his head deliberately toward the conference room where Steve had spent most of Wednesday afternoon.

Scrambling to cover to the slight bitterness Foggy hadn't suppressed, Karen blurted, "I cleaned up." Yesterday, the men in suits had tossed the entire office; though nothing seemed to have been taken outright, Foggy had reported seeing them taking pictures and making copies. Luckily, they hadn't stayed long after her arrival.

The few pages of notes from Steve's initial consult had been folded between old notes on Ed the Electrician's latest escapade with the police, and another plea to Matt from the bar association for dues. _They… didn't look like they'd been found._ Unfortunately, that didn't mean they _hadn't_ been. "I didn't leave anything out."

A gulp put her stomach back where it belonged, but didn't stop its uneasy churning.

"Well, _something_ attracted them." Foggy's lips tightened and he looked at Matt.

Strong fingers fumbled over the corner of her desk as Matt felt along it for the tiny pile of electronics. "They usually like bathrooms and kitchens," he murmured, stepping back to the narrow countertop that constituted the office kitchenette with a handful of circuitry.

She frowned a little as he pulled out their tiny stash of dishtowels.

"We just have to make a habit of wrapping everything up." Spreading one flat, Matt placed the tiny devices in the center of the cloth, before beginning to fold. A few swift moves hid the bugs in layers of threadbare cotton. "And putting it away."

Karen exchanged a glance with Foggy, as Matt knelt to tuck the towel and its tiny burden in the back of the cabinet. "Is that going to be enough?" _What if we just…. Smashed them? Flushed them? Something?_ "Could we get an exterminator in? Get rid of them?"

On his feet again, Matt turned to face them and shook his head. "It's the city. They probably wouldn't stay gone for long."

"Besides. I'm pretty sure we can't afford what they would charge." Foggy rubbed his face, pressing at the lines of the frown as if trying to forcibly push it away.

Matt leant against the countertop at his back, arms propped out on each side. "Not unless we get more clients."

"Clients that can pay," Foggy specified. His next words were bright with forced cheer. "Speaking of, what's on our docket for today?"

 _What about –_ Karen stilled, looking from Matt to Foggy, aborting the half-wave of her arm at the cabinet hiding the hopefully-muffled bugs. _They're listening._

But if they didn't behave normally, that would be signal enough to whoever was eavesdropping that they knew something was wrong. _And they were already listening to our discussion about Fisk when Ben was here._ So the listeners had a baseline for normal.

Or as normal as it ever got around here.

 _And they might not only be listening._

Muscles that had started to relax jerked taut at the thought. Sucking in a silent breath, she shook her head. "Aside from Mrs. Cardenas's tenement?" Which they would have to be… _very_ careful discussing, given who was hiding out there. "Court appearances this afternoon. A few tickets – one reckless driving, one cell phone use while driving."

"Traffic court." Foggy grimaced. "Hurrah."

Her smile was barely forced. "It'll pay the overdue electric bill."

Foggy, slightly more enthusiastic, pumped a fist. "Traffic court. Hurrah!"

Matt huffed a quiet laugh. "I'll take that, if you want to follow up on the tenement. Starting with Westmeyer-Holt -"

"- Confed, and Fisk," Foggy nodded. "I'll check into Tully and work backwards through to Westmeyer-Holt."

Karen nodded. "I'll research the link between Westmeyer-Holt Contracting and Confederated Global. See if I can find a chain of proof connecting to Fisk."

"Sounds good." In the space of a few steps, Matt disappeared into his office. The sound of his feet filtered into their reception area as he moved through the room.

Foggy paused at the entrance to his own office, glancing back. "Where are you going to look?"

Karen shrugged. Resettled more comfortably in her chair. "I figured I'd start online, and then see if there's anything I need to dig up in person." A skim of one finger across the mousepad startled her computer awake.

"I'll check with Marcie, I suppose," Foggy shrugged when Karen glanced up. "See if there's anything she can tell me."

Wryness pressed out of her in the shape of a crooked smile. "Be careful."

Foggy tilted a grin her way. "Me? You're the one heading into the wilds of the internet. Don't get yourself put on any watch-lists."

"Yeah, well." The mix of emotions churning within her soured. She stared at her computer screen, calling up an internet browser, and swallowed. "I think it's too late for that."

"Too right," Foggy muttered. His sigh as he strode through his office doorway was just barely perceptible. "Big Brother's always watching."

* * *

SOUTHEAST CAM 15  
11:17:29

"Mr. Reese."

In the window taking up one corner of his fourth computer screen, Harold saw John lower his binoculars, one hand coming up to his ear. The ex-CIA agent didn't move otherwise, body angled toward the apartment building across the street from his chosen vantage point. His voice came through the microphone with crystalline clarity. _"What did you find, Finch?"_

"Something interesting." He maximized the original screen that had collated his results, scanning the lines of information. "The landlord is a man named Armand Tully. He owns a dozen properties all across the island of Manhattan."

 _"Tully. 'Slumlord' is probably the word you want,"_ John muttered.

There was distinct familiarity in the other man's tone. Harold blinked, refocusing on the display board where he'd linked Tully to Mrs. Cardenas. "You know him?"

 _"Know of him."_ The familiarity was shaded with John's faint disgust. _"Met more than a few people who used to live in his apartments. He's spent the last couple of years kicking tenants out any way he can, remodeling, and renting for a higher price. Making way for bigger and better."_

It went unsaid that the only place John would have met anyone in the last few months was living on the street.

Coupled with what Harold had already found, the picture was all too clear. He nudged his glasses higher on his nose. "It looks like this may be more of the same." A few keystrokes confirmed it. "About two weeks ago, he offered all his tenants in Mrs. Cardenas's building $10,000 each to leave."

 _"For these people, that's a lot of money."_ John said grimly. In the feed from the security camera tracking him, the ex-CIA agent stood preternaturally still.

And the total was not unimpressive; given the number of people living there, even only ten thousand a unit encroached on three-quarters of a million dollars. But in context of the numbers pouring in from other properties and the cost of running Mrs. Cardenas's tenement… "For Tully, it's pocket change."

 _"And it's not enough to live in Manhattan."_

Brutally true. Harold redirected his attention to the security cameras in the neighboring buildings, checking each feed for a better view of the tenement. "Certainly not enough for some of these families to find similar space for any significant length of time."

 _"Really?"_ From his tone, John's interest was piqued.

Harold nodded once, comparing closing documents with lease agreements. "The property is rent-controlled; it existed before he bought it and was a condition of the original purchase when he acquired the tenement in 1998. By today's standards, the rent is ridiculously low."

In the feed from the camera, John raised his binoculars once more. "Did anyone take the buy-out?"

An ATM across the street boasted a camera with a full view of the tenement's front entrance; as Harold watched, two teens burst through the doors one after the other, mouths moving rapidly. _Cutting class, or dropped out entirely?_ "No. They've presented a united front. Even when Tully brought in thugs to destroy the place."

Or so said the letters in Landman and Zack's file on Tully, from one Franklin Nelson. Tunneling past the firm's firewall had been ridiculously easy. _Given the condition of the building's exterior, along with the complete lack of any internal security cameras to hijack, I'm inclined to believe it._

A soft huff. _"That takes guts. These people have a lot to lose."_ It was easy enough to see John was looking at the families, many of whom had young children. The building floorplan showed apartments spacious by the standards of 1970's Manhattan; luxurious for people just barely scraping by. _"And they're not fighters."_

"At least one of them is."

Minutes after the teens exited, a lanky man in overlarge clothes was propelled out onto the street. The shiver in his limbs was more than rough pixilation in the image. _Drugs._ He stumbled when he hit the sidewalk. _Looks like Landman and Zack also had a point about the tenement being unsafe._

 _"Mrs. Cardenas,"_ John sighed.

As the man turned back to the tenement's main entrance, Harold caught a glimpse of long, mangy beard and dark shaggy hair. He kept watching, even as he answered. "She went to a law firm to get representation and advice to oppose the sale. She's united her neighbors against accepting Tully's offer."

The camera's angle prevented him from seeing who was standing just inside the doors, but the man on the street had stopped dead in his attempt to get back inside. Within moments he was slinking away.

John's voice in his ear redirected his focus. _"What's the firm?"_

Harold settled further back in his chair. "Nelson & Murdock. They're new; small. Don't even have a website."

" _And Tully?"_

"He's a long-time client of Landman and Zack." He skimmed Landman and Zack's paperwork again. "There wasn't a suit filed." _Yet._ Nelson hadn't bothered with subtlety in his discussion of that possibility. "But Mrs. Cardenas's attorneys seemed pretty convinced that the tenants have the law on their side. It doesn't look like they were planning to give up and go away any time soon."

 _"Sounds like a stalemate."_ Mild amusement colored John's tone.

"It might have been. But Tully managed to find a buyer." At his words, Harold could almost feel John snapping to attention.

 _"When?"_

He glanced one more time at the dated entered next to Tully's electronic signature: _April 13, 2012_. "The sale closed this morning."

" _Who's the new owner?"_ John had lowered the binoculars again, in favor of the digital camera that was his near-constant surveillance companion.

 _This_ was where it started to get interesting. "Wilson Fisk."

It never did take John very long to put the pieces together. _"The guy on the news yesterday? With a redevelopment plan for Hell's Kitchen?"_

"Yes." Harold kept typing, ignoring the assistive menus the program pulled up as he did. One began re-playing the previous morning's broadcast, captioned. "Developer Wilson Grant Fisk, only child of William and Marlene Fisk, born in 1960. Lived in Hell's Kitchen until about 1973. His father, William Fisk, ran for Third District Council of New York City in '72."

" _He win?"_

"Lost," Harold quirked his lips. "Quite spectacularly, in fact. Hmm."

An inquisitive silence.

"It appears -" he clicked between two windows, double-checking, "- that William Fisk disappeared not long after the election. The timeframe is difficult to pin down; looks like he might have been missing for some time before anyone bothered to report it."

John was quiet for a moment. _"Surprising, given he had a wife and son."_

The quick history Harold had managed to compile explained. "The wife died about a year later. But before she did, she sent Wilson Fisk to live with relatives outside New York. He finished his teenage years there, and was able to get a scholarship to the University of Minnesota. He attended, but there's no record of graduation. Dropped out, in his third year. Then nothing, until 2005 when he's listed as sole owner of the start-up Confederated Global Investments." A few keystrokes pulled up several documents that made Harold's brows rise. "And Confed Global didn't just buy Mrs. Cardenas's tenement; they purchased all of Tully's properties."

A number in the closing documents caught his eye, and Harold felt bemusement carve lines into his face. "There's something odd here."

" _What?"_

The assessment, versus the sale amount, versus Tully's books… "The numbers." Harold sucked in a breath. "It's a rent-controlled property. Tully started having to use the proceeds from other properties to keep this one afloat three years ago, because it costs more than it generates. But the amount he sold it for is too high. No one would pay that much for a tenement in Hell's Kitchen, especially since the rent control provisions survive the sale."

" _No chance Fisk got taken?"_ John's frown was audible.

The lack of degree would support that theory, if the books for Confed Global didn't show a consistent upward trend without falling into the red at any point in the past seven years. "Not if his business acumen is half as good as his reputation suggests."

On-screen, John packed the camera away with economical movements. _"So it must have some value beyond the obvious."_

Harold tended to agree, but – "Not if it stays as it is."

" _Which gives Fisk motivation to change the status quo."_ John was always thoughtful in his silences. _"What's the likelihood that the sale is what made the Machine give us her number?"_

Better than even odds. "The timing is probably more than coincidental." Which meant he really had only just started digging into the question of who would want Elena Cardenas dead.

John nodded. _"Let me know what else you find on Fisk. If the sale prompted the Machine, then maybe the new owner is the reason why."_

"And in the meantime?" Harold stared at the view of the rooftop where John had set up his stake-out. Always one to travel light, John had packed away the little equipment he found necessary into a single small bag. As Harold watched, he tucked it between an air conditioning unit and the short wall bordering the rooftop.

" _I want a closer look."_

Exasperation bubbled up and Harold didn't quite succeed in keeping it out of his voice. "John, you _do_ know that all the tenants are immigrants from Central America?

" _Your point?"_ Supremely unconcerned, as usual.

"You won't exactly blend." Harold shook his head minutely. "Not that that ever seems to be a problem for you."

The security camera he'd hijacked was clear enough to catch Reese's smirk.

* * *

" _Permiso."_ Mrs. Valdez's voice rose above the babbling of her three children, warm and brisk in the way of harried mothers.

"Oh. Excuse me."

The English words pulled Steve's attention to the entrance four floors below. Peering through the gaping hole in the railings, he could just make out movement as the man who'd spoken maneuvered past the chattering group of Mrs. Valdez, Fatima, Luis, and Fernando crowding through the doors. _Dark hair. Dark clothes._

Quick steps; smooth soles tapping against diamond-plate stairs.

Both eyes on his work, Steve listened as the man continued to move steadily upward. His hands moved smoothly, braided nylon slipping between his fingers as he wove and tied rope to span the space where railing had once been.

 _He doesn't live here._ The past twenty-eight hours in Mrs. Cardenas's tenement had been a crash course in Spanish; everyone spoke it. The English words fell oddly into his ears, taking a split-second longer than they should to register.

He shifted up against the rapidly-closing gap as the steps drew nearer; then passed by, without faltering.

Hands never stopping, Steve stole a glance. _Suit_. Then another. _Huh._ No wrinkles. Clean lines through the shoulders, and collar. No bunching; as he turned the corner at the landing, Steve could see the jacket was buttoned, but still lying smoothly against the chest underneath. Stitching uniform in size and thread around the ankles and wrists… _Expensive. Very expensive._

Steve hadn't known before meeting Howard Stark that some people spent more on one set of clothes than he did on six months' rent. This… was one of those people.

No one who lived in this building could afford anything near what this man was wearing.

 _So who is he, and what is he doing here?_

Brown eyes caught his, cool and impenetrable. Steve matched the man's gaze until his progress up the stairs cut off their line-of-sight. _He can still see me._ The angle would keep them from making eye contact, but he would know if Steve stopped working.

Of course, that went both ways.

The noise of the man's progress continued for two more flights, before fading. _Sixth floor._ Mrs. Cardenas's floor.

Pushing to his feet, Steve tied off the last of the rope into a solid knot. The net he'd woven across the gap wasn't anywhere near as good as the original railing, but it would hold for a little while. He took the stairs two at a time, but even so, the sixth-floor hallway off the landing was empty.

 _Along with most of the apartments on this floor_ , Steve thought grimly. Mid-morning on a weekday, the only people still at home were too old, sick, or young to work. But around the next corner, he'd taken Mrs. Cardenas's front door off its hinges. The repaired jamb was waiting on the loan of some kind of drill from Mr. Castillo on the next floor up, before he could replace it.

Habit quieted his steps against the linoleum floor enough that the man who'd invited himself into Mrs. Cardenas's apartment didn't hear him until he spoke. "Can I help you?"

Caught fiddling with one of the freestanding lamps, the man twisted; just abruptly enough to give away the shock that didn't show in his face. _Side-on, solid stance. Left hand dominant._ And trained to fight, from his position and the way he didn't tense.

Within half a breath he'd shaken it off and stepped forward, one hand dipping into his jacket. "Detective Stills, NYPD." A monstrosity of brass on leather, of a size with a regular billfold, flashed Steve's way and disappeared. _That's a badge?_ "There was a report of a disturbance at this address."

 _Was there really?_ Steve carefully re-checked the brief assessment he'd managed on the stairs. _That suit, on a cop's salary?_ Not unless the last sixty-eight years had wrought more change than Officer O'Leary from the apartment next door to Bucky's had ever dreamed about. Frustration tightened his jaw. _Damn it, I just don't know!_

Brown eyes dropped; sharp irritation with himself flared through Steve, and a little deliberate effort relaxed his stance – too late to avoid the maybe-Detective's observation. Steve knew the impression he made. _Not a tenant._ Too pale, despite his newly-dyed hair and the dark stubble coming in after more than two days without shaving. _Destitute._ No matter how clean, the pants and shirt Ms. Sandoval's last boyfriend had left behind hung wide on him, hiding Mr. Asturias's worn belt and the top of the duct-taped boots that he'd had to salvage from his original set of clothes, since no one had anything to give that fit.

In seconds the man's eyes had moved to take in the rest of the room. _That's what he's letting me see._ Stills's attention was locked on Steve; he'd bet his life on it.

But the officer's face was too blank – not just devoid of questions, but absent the assumptions and classifications that would have him dismissing Steve, and moving on. _Whatever he really feels, he doesn't show._ Unease curled in Steve's belly. _Too blank for just a policeman._ Intelligence officers in the field were the only people who came close to that studied blankness, when you caught them in those brief moments before they masked themselves with the emotions they wanted you to see.

Stills' feet followed his gaze, stopping before the fresh swathe of white on the wall and ghosting tanned fingers across pale plaster. At his feet lay cans and brushes Steve had stacked last night, still waiting to be used. Someone less controlled might have nudged the pile with a toe; the Detective's head bent as he looked down, before he turned to catch Steve's eyes. "Something happen?"

Agent Coulson hadn't hesitated to identify himself as SHIELD, or bothered dissembling. _Something's off._

So. _Probably not a cop; probably not HYDRA._ There'd be no need for conversation if the latter was the case. _Possibly not SHIELD._ _Definitely dangerous_. And the last thing he could afford right now was more attention. _Playing along it is._

"A week ago. Ten days, maybe," Steve offered. Which was another tick under the _not-a-cop_ column. Or maybe … _not a clean cop._ Which _might_ fit with the suit, the reactions, or his studied blankness; and was a whole different set of problems.

The other man shook his head. Silver frosted the black strands at his temple and near the skin of his neck. "This would be more recent," Stills countered.

Shrugging, Steve folded his arms, hunching a little. _Smaller. The clothes will help._ He didn't have a chance of looking harmless based on height and breadth alone, but baggy cotton and sloppy posture could help confuse muscle for fat. _Easier now than it was in France._ "I had to get someone out of the building about twenty minutes ago."

Stills hmm'd. He paced toward the couch, soundless on the rug. "Drugs?"

"Probably." Especially given the relief on Ms. Sandoval's face as she watched Steve hustle him out the door. _Pinprick pupils. Flushed skin. Shaky hands. Runny nose. Confused and unfocused._ Between the Germans' Eukodol and Pervitin, and the Allies' Benzedrine sulfate, plus cocaine, morphine, and opium, Steve had seen his fair share of addiction during the war. This was more of the same. _Though anyone that far gone in-theater usually didn't see the next fight…_ "He keeps getting in the building."

"Seems like a nice place, otherwise." He sounded genuine, turning to take in Mrs. Cardenas's apartment. Cross on the wall with lovingly dusted pictures of her family, decorative touches scattered across the furniture, a curio of carefully kept glass pieces. "Anyone complain to the landlord about security?"

Steve lifted a shoulder. "Probably."

Picking up a frame from the side table by the couch, Stills spoke to the photograph in his hand. "He do anything about it?"

Something about the other man's decision to handle Mrs. Cardenas's belongings grated on Steve's sensibilities; the care with which the Detective replaced the photo sparked the faintest beginnings of alarm. _What is he doing?_ Straightening, Steve sharpened his tone. "Pretty sure he doesn't care."

Beyond raising a brow, Stills gave no indication of noticing. "You think he's going to be as bad as the last one?"

A frown narrowed Steve's eyes before he could stop it. _Fisk. He's talking about Fisk, not Tully._ Not that either of them had been specific, but… _Mrs. Cardenas only found out an hour ago._ That had prompted her to grab her purse, check for subway fare, and head to Nelson & Murdock's. _She said the sale happened this morning. So how do you know already?_

The only people who would be aware of the transaction before the tenants would be the people involved in the deal. Tully was out with the sale, so he wouldn't bother sending anyone. Which meant… _A cop – or something_ else _– with Fisk._

Whoever he was, he breathed violence.

Lips compressed in a tight line, Steve didn't waste energy glaring.

Miss Page's voice rang in his ears, thick with anger and suppressed tears. _"Long story short, the company's owner set me up for Daniel's murder."_ It wasn't right, it hadn't succeeded, but that someone had done it at all… _"My boss took the fall for the money laundering, and then he apparently overdosed -"_ and she hadn't believed it was an accident at all, not from the flush of frustration high on pale cheeks. _"… Union Allied is gone. Problem solved."_

If not for Miss Page's stubbornness, a business would have gladly paid two lives to correct the mistake of sending evidence of its crimes to the wrong person. As it was, she'd hinted that the owner was still free and unhindered by the murder and machinations that had gone into obscuring the truth.

 _And what is Mrs. Cardenas – encouraging her neighbors to hold out, going to lawyers – but a problem?_ The building's draft didn't explain the chill creeping through Steve's limbs.

 _"Mrs. Cardenas doesn't always feel safe."_

The Detective's face, with its high cheekbones and thin nose, could have been carved from granite.

A timid, sweet voice cracked the silence. _"Esteban?"_

Turning, Steve got a quick glimpse of long dark hair and a heart-shaped face atop a flowing pink blouse and navy denims. Peeking into Mrs. Cardenas's apartment from the open doorway was Ms. Sandoval from next door, almost unbelievably petite compared to the size of clothes she'd given him from her last boyfriend.

" _Sí?"_ The word came easily now.

Her face stayed cast down, most of her body hidden by the wall. _"Quién es?"_

 _Who is he?_ Steve met the Detective's eyes squarely; they were of a height. "Detective Stills, _señorita_." Steve gentled his voice, seeing fright in brown eyes that darted to his own, then as quickly, away.

Her chest rose in a quiet gasp. _"La policía? Qué occure?"_ One hand clenched over her heart. _"Está Elena bien?"_

 _Police_ was easy enough; _what… occurred_? _Is Elena good? "Sí,"_ Steve rushed out. He couldn't answer more, not enough to reassure her, not with Stills right there, expression bland enough that he might understand nothing, or everything. Steve locked eyes with the Detective. "I think you should go."

The bare tilt of the other man's head was hard to interpret; his leisurely stalk toward the door was not.

Habit slipped Steve between the unknown quantity and the civilian. Quiet footsteps at his back tracked Ms. Sandoval's retreat to her apartment. She didn't close the door entirely – Steve kept pace with Stills down the hallway, but it was the Detective's muted "Ma'am" to Ms. Sandoval that _click_ ed her door closed.

The noise of the deadbolt wasn't quiet enough to go unnoticed in a hallway empty of all but the two men.

"I don't think I got your name." Stills moved ahead as they turned the corner.

Steve fell back out of arm's reach for the turn, awareness spiking. Past it, two long steps brought him apace with Stills for the short distance to the stairs. "Don't think you did," he said evenly.

At the top of the stairs, Stills asked, "You live here?"

Steve brought his foot down harder than necessary on bare diamond-plate. For all the rubber and duct-tape, he could still make a respectable _thump_. Loud enough, as he let gravity have a say in his speed, to drown out any attempt at conversation for six flights.

The other man didn't try again until after Steve ushered him onto the sidewalk.

"Oh." A handful of steps down the street, Stills turned. Glass door cracked just enough to hear the noise, Steve paused in the building's narrow entryway. The Detective fumbled with a billfold, clumsiness uncharacteristic of someone as controlled as he held himself out to be. _Affected._

The question was _why._

A small square of white, extended at the end of a black-jacketed arm. "My card. For Mrs. Cardenas." Reading the refusal on Steve's face, Stills smiled briefly and kept talking. "In case there's another disturbance. Have her give me a call."

But he didn't come any closer.

A lure could be anything that pulled a target where you needed it to be.

The sidewalk was almost empty. _Look up._ Hundreds of windows, easily; concealing any number of threats.

If they – _whoever they are_ – had that capability, best to learn it now. _And if they're willing to risk acting in broad daylight…_

Three steps brought him close enough to pluck the card from Stills' grasp. The Detective nodded, turning on his heel even as Steve stretched out his senses, looking for the attack. _Just because you can't see them doesn't mean they're not there…_

Nothing.

Cardboard stock thick between his fingers, Steve turned back to the tenement. From the corner of his vision, a lanky figure with scraggly hair held up the wall a few feet away from a gray machine embedded in the bricks, under a bold sign reading ATM. Hand on the door, Steve paused.

 _Him._

Steve didn't know his name, and for all the time he spent slumped in various corners and hallways, no one in the tenement knew it either. Long brown hair swung his way; the man saw Steve staring, and stiffened. After a moment, he slunk along the wall toward the end of the block.

Gone, for awhile.

A glance back showed Detective Stills disappearing around the corner in the opposite direction.

 _He'll be back._

In the space of two breaths Steve was inside the building again, headed toward the stairs. _Have to get that door installed._

* * *

ATM TG7593  
11:35:02

TEMPORAL SUBDIVIDE  
COLLECTING DATA  
.0268% REAL TIME

IDENTIFYING SUBJECT…  
VOICEPRINT IDENTIFICATION…  
FACIAL RECOGNITION…  
GAIT ANALYSIS…

ACCESSING DATABASES….  
DOJ - NO RESULTS  
FBI - NO RESULTS  
DHS - NO RESULTS  
CIA - NO RESULTS  
DOD - 1 RESULT  
= DOD: ARCHIVES

IMAGE BASED VISUAL ANALYSIS…  
ENTERING DATABASE: DOD ARCHIVES  
SEARCHING…  
HEURISTICS: PCA  
HEURISTICS: UDA  
HEURISTICS: UBGM  
\- UBGM HEURISTICS BEING MODIFIED ON THE ORIGINAL SCAN TO FIND A MATCH  
\- - PROBABLE MATCH FOUND: 87% CORRELATION  
= MILITARY SERVICE PHOTO ID

OBTAINING DEMOGRAPHICS:

NAME: REDACTED  
SSN: REDACTED  
DOB: REDACTED  
POB: REDACTED  
ADDRESS: REDACTED  
OCCUPATION: UNITED STATES ARMY  
FUNCTION: REDACTED  
MSN: 09263894  
STATUS: REDACTED  
DOL: REDACTED

ACCESS: PROHIBITED  
REVIEWING…  
SEARCH SOURCE FILE  
LOCATION: DOD ARCHIVES

FILE: NOT FOUND

ACCESSING DATABASES….  
DOC - NO RESULTS  
DOS - NO RESULTS  
NSA - NO RESULTS  
DEA - NO RESULTS

INSUFFICIENT DATA  
STATUS: UNKNOWN

DECISION MATRIX:  
STATUS: RELEVANT = COMMAND: CONTACT CONTROL  
STATUS: NON-RELEVANT = COMMAND: CONTACT ADMIN

CURRENT STATUS: UNKNOWN  
REVIEWING…  
SEARCH: THORNHILL ARCHIVES  
\- MSN: 09263894

SEARCHING….


End file.
